2Corinthians 1:18 says “But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No.” So the Bible tells us that God is true and so His servants should be true as well.
In God’s inspired book, the Bible, we read John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
“For God so loved the world” This is an amazing statement because “God is holy” (Psalm 99:9 “… For the LORD our God is holy.”) and happy in His holiness. However He states that He still loves the world of people, which includes us all, and so we can believe Him.
Yet what is the greatest way you can prove you love someone? By sacrificing for them. And what is the greatest sacrifice a person can make for another? Giving up his/her life for them. This fact is stated in God’s Word in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” But how did God prove His greater love? “That He gave His only begotten {meaning unique} Son” the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:6, “Who {Christ Jesus v5}, being in the form {meaning essential character} of God, did not consider it robbery {a thing to be grasped after} to be equal with God.” People grasp after higher positions in society. As the Lord Jesus Christ was not grasping after being equal with God, this verse shows that being the Son of God meant that He was equal with God the Father.
Yet God the Father gave such a great and important Person, to come into the world. As a gift is not paid for or deserved, so we did not deserve the Lord Jesus Christ to live on earth. Yet Jesus Christ came, lived a perfect life and died on the cross for all our sins in an often, ungrateful, world.
God, having sent His Son into the world, then made salvation easy because it can be received through two decisions. The first is that we repent of our sins, i.e. that we change our minds about continuing in sins. The second is that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, the gift of eternal life, and God’s power to save us forever.
You might say that it is good that God loves the world but as there are so many people in the world how do I know that God particularly loves me?
After the apostle Paul had trusted in Christ as His Saviour he wrote in Galatians 2:20, “… the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Paul realised that despite him being a terrible sinner he had the unmistakeable, unshakeable and unbreakable proof that God loved him. He realised and believed that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, died for him on the cross. On that terrible cross, the Son of God himself died for him and the same applies to every believer in Christ.
1 John 3:16 says, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. …” Why did Jesus willingly go to the cross for you? Because God loves you very, very, very much.
Someone said, ‘The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed {defective} that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.’
1John 3:1 “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!”
John 1:12 “But as many (not everyone) as received Him (Christ v10), to them gave He the right (or authority) to become children of God, to those who believe in His name (i.e. Jesus Christ’s Person or character).”
So here is another amazing evidence of God’s great love to us, because that when anyone trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, Christ actually makes him/her a child of God i.e. they have the immense privilege of being a member of God’s family. Also at the time of faith the believer will receive the Lord Jesus Christ to dwell in him/her.
The apostle Paul, who trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ about AD 35, wrote to Christians about AD 60, in Romans 8:35 about tribulation, distress, persecution, famine and danger in his life and then adds in v38-39, “For I am persuaded {not just had a nice thought}, that neither death {the king of terrors}, nor life {with all its distractions}, nor angels {that followed satan}, nor {evil} principalities nor {evil} powers, nor things present, nor things to come, v39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing {man or animal}, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is an amazing statement.
But why do people not realise that God deeply loves them?
1. Because they do not believe it. God speaks from total knowledge and us people, who are sinners, and speak from a vastly less understanding and will not believe it. Also Christians can be slow of heart to believe when God’s truth is spoken. The Lord Jesus said to two believers in Him in Luke 24:25, “Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” So Christians can be slow to grasp God’s truth.
2. Personal appearance. A survey for the Mental Health Foundation shows that 31 per cent of teenagers said that in the last year they had felt ashamed of their body image. How do family, friends, peers, speak about bodies and appearance? Do they convey messages about what is attractive or not attractive and what we need to be trying to look like? Some people are bullied or teased or called names which can upset us.
The images and messages from the media, social media and advertising that subtly or unsubtly tell us that we need to look a certain way to be loved, attractive and successful. Many of these images are idealized, unrealistic and unachievable for all of us ordinary, average looking people. So if you are trying to achieve an unachievable goal it can lead to depression and despair and cause you to begin to despise your own body. Nevertheless God does not love you more, because of a supposed “good” body image, or less because of a supposed “poor” body image. When the Lord Jesus was here on the earth He never said to anyone that they were either too fat or too thin, or too tall or too short or disproportionate. He loved them all.
3. Lack of material possessions and hard personal circumstances. People think that if they are they are materially poor, or going through hard circumstances, or are not doing well with exams or their job or someone is persecuting them, that therefore God does not love them. Trauma can really adversely affect people’s faith. It might devastate beliefs about God and leave people questioning the goodness of God by asking, “If God loves me, why did he let this happen?” We can doubt His power, His love to us, and whether we are loveable. Some of these doubts can lead to a pattern of distorted beliefs including that the trauma means that we are being punished and are shameworthy. But such thoughts are not true.
There was a man who said of himself that he was “in prisons more frequently, five times I received forty stripes minus one, three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; … in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27) and other things. That was the apostle Paul, who was very poor and when in prison he wrote in 2Timothy 4:13 “Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas {about 600 miles from his Roman prison} when you come …” While he felt these unpleasant things nevertheless, he rejoiced in Romans 8:38-39 which he was inspired of God to write.
God does not love you because of a so called “good” body image, material possessions, good circumstances, or lack of trauma. God proved His love to you when He sent the Lord Jesus Christ into this sinful and often ungrateful world. God loves you right now just where you are and as you are and will continue to do so. God loves you unconditionally.
Just believe it.