As we start this journey of really believing that the verses in the Bible are written to us and for us it’s imperative that we first truly recognize that God loves us and He will not do anything to harm us and bring us shame.
Over the next few days the verses I share with you are going to be “love” focused. God’s love for us is unconditional! That means, plain and simple, that there isn’t anything that we can do to cause God to love us less and we can’t work to get Him to love us more.
God loves us because He IS love!
“ But God had so much loving-kindness. He loved us with such a great love. 5 Even when we were dead because of our sins, He made us alive by what Christ did for us. You have been saved from the punishment of sin by His loving-favor. 6 God raised us up from death when He raised up Christ Jesus. He has given us a place with Christ in the heavens. 7 He did this to show us through all the time to come the great riches of His loving-favor. He has shown us His kindness through Christ Jesus.
8 For by His loving-favor you have been saved from the punishment of sin through faith. It is not by anything you have done. It is a gift of God. 9 It is not given to you because you worked for it. If you could work for it, you would be proud.” Ephesians 2:4-9 NLV
God’s love and forgiveness is a gift.
With Christmas just passed, did any of you celebrate with a small child? When the presents were distributed did any one of those children open a gift and then look at the adult that provided and say, “You know I really haven’t been that good lately. I don’t deserve such a wonderful gift. You were too generous. I just can’t accept this.”? No! I doubt that any of you heard such a conversation.
Then why do we not freely receive the gift of God’s love? Why do we feel that we must do something to earn it or feel that God no longer loves us when we do something that is disappointing?
When God says he loves us, he cannot lie! If He did, he would no longer be perfect and so He would no longer be God.
“Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. 7 No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. 8 But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful.
9 But there is more! Now that God has accepted us because Christ sacrificed his life’s blood, we will also be kept safe from God’s anger. 10 Even when we were God’s enemies, he made peace with us, because his Son died for us. Yet something even greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, we will be saved by his Son’s life. 11 And in addition to everything else, we are happy because God sent our Lord Jesus Christ to make peace with us.” Romans 5:6-11 CEV
You’ve heard the word “gospel”. Do you know what it means? It means “the nearly too good to be true message”. This message, that Jesus was willing to die for us and that God is no longer angry with us and welcomes us into relationship with Him is just that – nearly too good to be true.
So whether you choose the verses from Ephesians 2 or the ones from Romans 5, or maybe you’ll choose both, to write down, let them sink it, deep into your heart so that you will truly know how much God loves you.
Believe it – it’s true!