“Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me
so; Little ones to Him belong; They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus
loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.”
Chances are if you have been around the church, you are
quite familiar with the old song “Jesus Loves Me.” Most people learned it as
kids in Sunday school. However, do we truly believe
that Jesus loves us? If I were to ask,
‘how do you think God feels about you?’ Or ‘what do you think that God thinks
about you?’ How would you respond? If I were to ask you this question after a
rough day at work, how would you respond? Or if I were to ask you about God’s
feelings/thoughts concerning you after you just had a fight with your spouse or
kids, how would you respond? Or if I were to ask you about what you think God
feels towards you after you have committed the same sin that you have continued
to struggle with for years, what do you think God’s response would be?
Chances are, you may feel some guilt from your
sins and mistakes and wonder how God could love you in moments such as these.
Sometimes it seems as if we treat God’s love as a set of scales and that the
things we have done right have got to outweigh the things that we have done
wrong. Other times, as a result of our own insecurities, having been beat down
by the world we question how anyone, including God, could love us. Still other
times, when we look at all the suffering we have gone through, and what is
going on in the world and begin to doubt God’s love. Thus, it can be easy to
believe in God but doubt that He loves us.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. God chose
to display His love for us when we were at our worst. Romans 5:8 says it like
this, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” Just two verses later, Scripture states that our
relationship with God was restored when we were His enemies (Rom. 5:10).
And 1 John 4:9-10 NLT states, “God showed how much He loved
us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal
life through Him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us
and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” God’s love for us is similar
to any good parents or grandparents: It is unconditional. There are no
prerequisites. We chose to love them before they could ever love us in return.
That is exactly how God’s love is for us, yet even greater.
All one needs to do is look in two places and they will see
God’s love for them. The first is at a manager some 2,000 plus years ago. And
the second is at the cross. Jesus, God in the flesh, came to live a life that
we could never live, and died a death that we deserved to die so that we might experience
His love for all of eternity. Thus, it is my prayer for you that you may know
the love of God that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19).
In His service,
Matt
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