God Loves Us

Knowing how much God loves us is foundational for our spiritual health. We need to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19). We can only know the love of God, which is beyond our knowledge, through the help of the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to reveal to us how much God loves us. The reason we need to know the love of Christ is so that we can be full of ALL the fullness of God. That’s a lot of God.

Our souls were made to be full of God. There is no one and no thing that can satisfy us like God. God loves us and wants to dwell inside us. We are the temple of God. In the end of the age, at the marriage supper of the lamb, the bride of Christ will be full of God. We can only be filled with God to the extent that we know God’s love. We need a greater revelation of God’s love throughout our Christian lives so we can increasingly be filled with God.

How will we know God loves us? There are several ways.

First of all, God created us because he loves us. He wanted us to exist. We are not an accident. We didn’t just appear because of our parents. We’re here because God wants us to be here. He purposely made us in our mother’s womb, knitting us together. 

Second, God knows all details about us. He knew us from the foundation of the world. He takes care of us, keeping us alive in this world. He counts the hairs on our head and knows all our thoughts. He is so attentive because he loves us.

Third, the Bible tells us that God loves us. Jesus said that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but should have eternal life (John 3:16). As the song says, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

These are all good ways to know the love of God. But the best way for us to know the love of God is through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

By this we know love, that Jesus laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16).

God demonstrates and shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

In this, the love of God was revealed, that God sent his Son into the world to be a sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

Jesus is the lawgiver. He gave perfect laws, and he expects us to follow them. We were criminals who broke his law, and his law says we must die. But in a shocking twist, the lawgiver himself, Jesus Christ, died. Why? Because we broke his law, which demands death, and he loves us and wants us to live.

Jesus is the judge. Someday, we will all stand before his throne to be judged. The judge should have declared us guilty and sentenced us to death. But instead of that, the judge took the sentence upon himself. The judge stepped down from his judgment seat, went onto trial, and was condemned to death. Why? Because Jesus loves us and wants us to go free.

Jesus is the officer who would have carried out the sentence against us and sent us into hell. But instead, the officer (Jesus) died instead of us, and then he went into hell instead of us (Acts 2:27; Ephesians 4:9; 1 Peter 3:18-20). Then he rose up again. 

Can you imagine a lawgiver who gave a perfect law, a perfect and all-powerful judge, and an omnipotent officer all dying in your place so you can be free from condemnation? This is what Jesus did for us, and he did this because of his great love for us. 

Not only this, but Jesus went through an agonizing death on the cross for our sins. Crucifixion is an excruciating way to die. The cross is not only a means of death, but also of torture. The very word “excruciating” comes from the words “ex cruce,” which is from the cross.

Being crucified involves nails being driven through sensitive nerves in the hands and feet, and great loss of blood. It involves being naked, exposed to the public view, and being humiliated. It involves birds plucking out eyeballs and picking at wounds. When people were crucified, they died by suffocation as the weight of their bodies collapsed their lungs. Why did Jesus endure all of this? It’s because of the horrible nature of our sins, and the fact that he loved us. 

Jesus gave up everything for us. He gave up his glory. He gave up his comfort in heaven and took on the flesh and pains of humanity. He gave up his reputation and was made of no reputation. Jesus even gave up his closeness to the Father, for he cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Jesus didn’t want to condemn us; he wants us all to be saved. He doesn’t want anyone to perish but to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

God is just, and our sins had to be paid for. On the cross, Jesus paid our complete debt to God, and there is nothing more for us to pay. Praise God!

If we know God’s love, then how will we live? What will we do?

First of all, we’ll believe that God loves us. We won’t doubt it. We’ll be confident that God will take care of us (Romans 8:32). We’ll know that God is working all things out for good in our lives (Romans 8:28). And we can overcome whatever the world, the flesh, or the devil throw at us (Romans 8:37-39). NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.

If we know God loves us, then we’ll love him. We’ll be so thankful for what he did for us. We owe him our lives. If he tells us to do something, we’ll do it. If he’s written something in his Word that we don’t understand, we’ll do it anyway, as a sign of our love to him. We’ll keep his commandments (1 John 5:3). We’ll want to please him. We’ll love others, especially the children of God.

The love of God doesn’t justify disobedience, lawlessness, demonism, sin, or the religious traditions of men. Instead, we’ll run away from this garbage into the arms of our heavenly Father so we can have life.

John the apostle had a special revelation of how much God loved him. John called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:4; 21:7, 20). Jesus loves all his children, but John in particular knew how much Jesus loved him. Because John had a revelation of God’s love, he was full of God. He was mightily used by God and had great revelations of God.

When we know God loves us, we have security. We have confidence in our relationship with him. We won’t run away from him; we’ll run toward him. We’ll embrace his word. We’ll run away from vain religious traditions, knowing that these things don’t please him. The closer we are to a fountain, the more we can drink from it. The closer we are to a river, the more we can swim in it. We want to know God’s love so we can be close to him, and so we can be filled with our awesome God.