God Loves You – How Can You know?
God loves you! How can I know? God wants you to know, and believe, and feel, and see that He loves you. First let me say that love is an action, not just emotional feelings and God demonstrates His love in all ways. James 1:17-18 says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.” He has given you many scriptures that abound with illustrations of His love, giving us assurance and promise.
God assures you in Psalm 100:5, “For the LORD is good and his love endures forever, his faithfulness continues through all generations.” This verse not only tells us of His goodness and love, but says that it is for us today, generations later than when it was written. God is faithful through all generations.
God Loves You – Features of His Love for You
God’s love for you has many attributes:
God’s Perfect Love – God’s perfect love begins with faith. Upon receiving His gift of love, we can have unexplainable peace, joy, and confidence in the worst of situations. It’s often as if we can supernaturally feel His loving arms around us when we need comfort, protection, or feel anxiety. It is by God’s love that fear, worry, and the pain of rejection are removed; something that the unbelieving world cannot understand.
“…Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you” (2 Corinthians 13:11).
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).
“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! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1).
God’s Love of Sacrifice – “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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:8-9).
God’s Love is Beneficial – “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1).
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions [sin] – it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5-6).
God Loves You – His Loving Promise
In the letters to the first of the seven churches of Revelation (Ephesus), Jesus tells the local church to not forsake their first love—Him). He promises them “…let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give them the right to eat from the tree of life, which is the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). Each address to the remaining six churches includes similar promises. Each church is called on to repent, therefore receiving the eternal blessings of our Loving God.
He shows us that though they (like you and I) have made many mistakes, that He still loves us and gives us every chance to turn to Him. Because of His great and never-ending love for us, God wants us to benefit from and inherit all the good He has for us. He also promises that if we reject His love and gift of atonement through Jesus, that we face eternal hell.
God sent His Son to pay the price for us, so that we can be forgiven and saved from the punishment of hell. Jesus died in our place. This is not a reflection of an unjust and unloving God, but a reflection of our animosity and rejection of Him. Because He is a loving God, He provided the only way of escape.
No matter how many mistakes you’ve made, no matter how unworthy you think you are, He still loves you and wants you to come to know Him. If you do not yet know Him, won’t you accept God’s gift of love today? It’s been paid in full for you.