You Are Loved
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There is a theme woven throughout the writings of the Apostle John. It is a message that you’ve heard before, but it never gets old.
God loves you.
The word love can be tossed around rather casually. I love this song. I love pizza. I love your new haircut. Therefore we need to know that God’s love is deep and powerful and never ending. His love is not dependent on our behavior or good deeds. There is nothing we can do or fail to do that will disqualify us from His love. God’s love is unconditional, unrelenting and unfailing.
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In his gospel and his letters, John reminds us of the great love God has for us. He writes, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). You are included in the term, “the world”. Before you were born, God loved you. While you were trapped in a life of sin, God loved you.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) God is not miserly or stingy with His love. His love is abundant, abounding, overflowing and lavish. God has called you His child.
Not only does God love us, but He is love personified. In fact, we can’t truly understand what love is, without knowing God, because John tells us that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8 and 1 John 4:16) Today, regardless of what is going on around you, remember you are loved.
Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for the abundant love that You have lavished on me. Though I have done nothing to deserve it, You love me with Your unconditional love. Amen.
Questions: What are your favorite verses that remind you of God’s love? How can remembering that God loves you change your perspective on your situation?
About the Author Suzanne Benner
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins.I AM LOVED because God first loved us!!!
Dear Trisha,
Thanks for sharing a bit of the deep wound in your heart. There are no simple answers for the way you have been treated. I want to pray a prayer of Paul’s for you:
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen Trisha with power through His Spirit in her inner being, so that Christ may dwell in her heart through faith. And I pray that Trisha, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that she may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14-19)
Only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we truly understand how wide and long and high and deep God’s love is.
i’m going to go out on a limb here with honesty…when i’m told or read “God loves me”, i don’t feel anything. i believe it has to do with my childhood. Love was distorted, taken advantage of and twisted into things that were NOT of God. Knowing God loves me doesn’t move me to do anything. it’s just another fact and something i’m grateful for. i also think it’s b/c what you say Suaznne about the word being tossed around for silly every day topics. it’s like, “God loves me”? Oh, OK…next…
It is important that we remind ourselves this truth regardless of how we feel because the enemy loves to lie to us.
I read these every morning for a little God and a little encouragement. I Love God, but like it said we use the word so casually we forget it isnt deep. I forget that to love we have to have actions showing love, not just saying it. I forget all the time! I want to show love like God does. I want to know love like God does. I have thought and prayed about love alot and I think as humans we can unconditionally love but by experience we cannot keep that person in our lives sometimes because they continue to hurt and use our love. I learned that true unconditional love sometimes means we have to let go. The most painful thing in the world is to love unconditionally.
I too missed the second part of the question. 1 John 18 states that perfect love drives out fear, so knowing that God’s love for me is perfect enables me to overcome fear.
My favorite verse on God’s love is Zephaniah 3:17
“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
Forgot this part! You ask: How can remembering that God loves you change your perspective on your situation? … Remembering and knowing that God loves me, really gives me the desire to be more like Him. Being more like Him, makes me a kinder more loving person; then He shines through me! God never shines a negative light, only a perfect positive one. Amen!
John 3:16 (NIV)
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.