DOES GOD REALLY LOVE ME?

I've had this post resting in my drafts for months and could never find the words to write until now.

Which, I know, sounds crazy. Especially since this blog wouldn’t even exist in the way it does if I hadn’t been met by love and inspired to share it.

The thing was, although God had already given me the answer (which is yes), I felt there was a specific way I was supposed to answer it. So, through a series of events, here we are.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. -John 3:16

A couple of months ago, I was sitting with friends, and our conversation turned to God and how he pursues people.

We found that it can seem like such a wild idea to think of Jesus being for everyone, yet at the same time, there are still many people with no Bible in their language, and that's the major reason we know Him the way we do. 

So if the Bible is how we know about God, and if it is the main way we hear Him speak, what about all of the people who don’t have access to it? 

Our conversation went deep (my favorite kind of conversation), and my friend, Laney, pointed out something that I haven’t been able to get off of my mind since. 

She said, “Well, if you think about it, God sent His Son for the world.” Wow.

THE WORLD.

By the way it struck me, you would’ve thought I had never heard John 3:16 before. But the truth is, I had just never genuinely thought about it that deeply before.

It was as if, at that moment, I had heard it for the first time and immediately knew that that was the honest answer to this question. 

Because it was at that moment that instead of sitting with the question, “Does God really love me?” any longer, I found myself quoting “For God so loved the world…” instead.

And while, when this question first came up, the context was nothing like this conversation with friends, Laney quoting this verse to me opened my eyes to the way that this verse truly answers this question, no matter who asks it or the context they ask it in. 

Because when she quoted this verse, she pointed me to the cross, and what Jesus did on the cross is for everyone everywhere, all of the time.

And while I know that there are times we feel as though we can escape God’s love, lose God’s love, or earn God’s love, through reading His Word we find that we simply can’t. 

God’s love for us is constant because love isn’t just the affection that God has for us. Love is who God is (1 John 4:8).

The Bible says that God shows His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Which means everything when you realize that we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and that the price for that sin is death (Romans 3:23) (Romans 6:23).

It shows us that God loves us so much that even knowing who we fully are, even the parts we’d like to hide, He still sent Jesus as Emmanuel to be God with us (Matthew 1:23).

Jesus loves us so much that He endured death on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for us, and He loves us so much that He rose to life again and offers us His Spirit if we’ll just believe in Him (Hebrews 12:2), (1 John 2:2), (Luke 24:6-7), and (John 7:38-39).

The truth is, God already has His mind made up about us. He loves us because love is who He is. And He is knocking at the door of every person’s heart, waiting for each of us to let Him in.

I encourage you to always look at the depths Jesus went to for you.

The proof of God’s love for us is in the cross.

So whenever you find yourself tempted to believe that you are unloved by God, I encourage you to sit with Jesus in His Word and remind yourself of this:

Of course, God loves me! He sent His Son for the world, and I am a part of it. He says that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, and I am whoever! And what is the motivation for it all? He loves me. Before I even loved Him. Because that is who God is: He is love. 

TYJ.

TARA

P.S. Happy (late) Valentine's Day!