Here is an odd confession: I used to get bored with hearing that God loved me.
I grew up going to church and got serious about my faith in 9th grade after floundering for a while. I attended a youth group that was very evangelistic. Every Wednesday night was for reaching out to unbelieving teens. The messages were straightforward, clear, but pretty repetitive. Time and again I heard ‘God loves you’. I believed it. I enjoyed hearing it. Yet after a while, I wanted to hear more, something else. It was such a basic truth and I wanted to go deeper that I actually got tired of hearing it taught. Imagine if your current math classes kept reteaching that 2+2=4 or in art you reviewed the primary colors over and over again: yellow, blue, and red. I already know that, can’t we move on?
This dissatisfaction shaped me as a pastor and youth minister. I want to go deep, not to settle for basic Christianity, or surface level faith (Heb. 5:11-6:2). I believe that the deeper we go in understanding God and his works, the more we will love, trust, worship, and obey, and delight in him.
In this pursuit of deep faith, I have had to remind myself not to gloss over or forget the elementary teachings of Scripture that are so sweet. We don’t learn and forget them. They aren’t for children only. We build upon them. In fact, we find that they aren’t so basic after all. The love of God is deep waters, if we would only wade a little farther into it.
We also need to be reminded of those foundational truths and not waste our Christian lives believing that deep spirituality is found focusing on obscure doctrines or learning lots of big theological terms. Return to the basic truths that God uses to win the world. Let the old paths be well worn. I never get tired of my wife telling me she loves me. Nor my kids. Likewise, I need to hear it often that God does, in fact, actually love me. I’m sure you do too. This isn’t just basic – it’s foundational and glorious. We love God because he first loved us, Scripture says.
Here are ten truths to remind you of the magnficent love of God.
1. God is love and experiences love eternally in himself
1 John 3 tells us that God is love. That is not mere sentiment. God isn’t just loving. He is the very definition of it. God is love! We wouldn’t even know what it is or how to measure it or how to show it apart from him. Love always requires an object. You have to love someone, something. God has been expressing that love eternally within the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit in perfect love, forever. So there is no lack of love within God.
2. God loves all people in his image generally
God created us because he delights to share his love. He created all things for his glory, but human beings in particular so that we might enjoy the riches of his love and so love him in return and bring him glory. God made us all. Each and every one, unique, special, and valuable. Everyone is made in God’s image, a child of God by right of his being our Creator. So God is kind to everyone.
3. God loves you mercifully
The great tragedy of life is that the world generally, because of sin, does not love God in return. And this is the source of all our woes. Those whom God created to bless and experience his love have rejected him. How does God respond? Amazingly, we see that he is even kind to his enemies, to those who do not even believe he exists. He provides and protects. He nourishes, gives life and the things necessary for life to all his created people. In this way, every human being experiences some of God’s love.
“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” | Luke 6:35
In a general sense God still loves all people, even those who will never trust or submit to him. Since we all have rejected God (Rom 3:9-18), any love God shows to anyone at any time is mercy. None deserve it. For many, sadly, the most they will ever know God’s love is his temporary kindness and mercy in this life.
4. God loves you savingly
God loves some more than others (Rom. 9:13). Here’s what I mean by this: God loves every human being whom he has created, even though we don’t return that love. He shows love by the blessings he provides that sustain life in a fallen world. Yet at the end of this life, we will all have to stand before the God whose love we have rejected and treated with contempt. We will all face judgment. We all have God’s sustaining mercies, but there is something more.
God is not content to only show love in this life. He has determined according to his own grace to save many from this condemnation and let them know the fullness of his blessing and love. To put it one way, for an unbelieving world, God is a good and just landlord. He will keep the lights on and water running, keep things working well so they can live their life. However, they owe a debt they didn’t pay, and he will someday evict them. To the believers, God is more than a landlord. He is a loving father who has welcomed us into his very own home.
The Scriptures say that God chose those whom he would show this greater redeeming love. From Ephesians 1:3-10:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
If you are in Christ, you have truly known the love of God.
5. God loves you Sacrificially
In order for you to know God and enjoy his love, your rebellion, guilt, sin, and brokenness had to be dealt with. So God sent Jesus on a rescue mission to make sure that each and every believer would have their crimes forgiven and sin dealt with by his death on the cross. God the Father did not spare his own eternal Son, but sent him to die for you. That is how much he loves you, at the cost of his own blood.
6. God loves you Overwhelmingly
Many people hear the good news of Jesus, and don’t believe, or have a kind of belief for a short time but then fall away. Is it possible that those whom God chose to show his greater love would fail to hear good news and respond in faith? No. The Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit into the world to draw us towards him. He removes the blindness and hardness that sin creates so we see and respond to God. He conquers our hearts in love. Many of you can attest to the feeling that the love of God for you found in the gospel overwhelmed you. It is that same Spirit who reminds us continually of God’s love for us, and fires our hearts with love for him.
7. God loves you Daily
Every morning God delights to shower you with new mercies, most of which you aren’t even aware of. Believer, you are the apple of his eye, his cherished son or daughter. He protects and provides for you even more, particularly from the devil’s schemes. He challenges your way and tests you in order to strengthen you, and all the way he sustains you. He sometimes lets you wander for a time, but always brings you back. He is your teacher, your Father, your friend, your king. He hears your prayers and answers from heaven.
8. God loves you entirely
He cares about all your life and all of you. Your body, mind, and emotions. Your past, present, and future. God doesn’t just care about your religion or your soul, He cares for all of you. He loves you through and through. That doesn’t mean he loves your sins or foolish decisions. Love doesn’t approve of evil (1 Cor. 13:5). However, he loves you through it all. Night and day, highs and lows, when you are strong or weak, when you are happy or sad, whether you have strong faith or weak, when you are obedient and when you are wayward. He has you and holds you.
9. God loves you faithfully
Since God chose you in love before the foundation of the world, Christ died for you, and the Spirit produced a responsive heart in you, he will never, never, never forsake you. He is forever faithful. He will not abandon you, forget you, turn his back on you, hate you, nor allow you to fall forever from him. God’s choice of you is his solemn oath: this one will never leave me, and I will never leave him. I will love you now and forever.
10. God loves you into eternity
Many who walk this earth will never know the fullness of God’s love. In fact, what they do experience, they are not even aware enough to enjoy. But you, dear believer, know the love of God. You will experience the boundless joy of God’s love forever and ever, unto the endless ages. God has chosen you to experience joy and glory and peace and happiness in God’s presence with his people forever. And you have done nothing to deserve this blessing. Rather the love of God has been poured out in your hearts.
So be encouraged, Christian, when you are reminded that ‘God loves you’, it is no small thing. It’s not a sentimental slogan meant to make you feel warm fuzzies. There is no more meaningful thing you will ever hear or could ever hear. God’s love for you is older than the earth and will far outlast it. So rest in God’s love. In Christ, you have all of the love of God, and not one drop less.
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” | 1 John 4:9-10 (ESV)
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