God So Loved the World
Many people struggle to perceive an image of an ever-loving and ever-forgiving God. Our perception of the Lord has been marred by sin and blurred by our failures and shortcomings. Most of us have this shortsighted outlook of the loving God of the Bible because we probably tend to compare Him to our earthly fathers or any adults whom we consider as authority figures in our lives.
We long to be loved, to be accepted as we are but have been rejected, feeling unloved, abused, misused, and used by people whom we look up to. People who were supposed to be role models became bad examples for us.
Our parents failed us, our teachers fell short of our expectations, coaches belittled us and other adults hurt us. These and many more unforgettable bad and sad experiences contributed to our feelings of emptiness and being unloved.
Many are insecure, have low self-esteem, and look down on themselves as worthless beings that nobody cares about. But wait. I have something to tell you that would change your perspective of God. The first Truth that I want you to realize is written in the popular verse in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
God Is So In Love With You
The good news my friend is that the God of the Bible, the true and living God, the Creator of the universe, including the world we live in and everything in it, is the God who is so in love with you and me.
He’s indeed a loving God. The Scripture says in 1 John 4:8 and 16 that God is love. Love is not God but God is love. This is the very essence of God, the center of His being, the core of His character.
God is a relational being and He wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us. He created us and designed us to long for love and to know how to reciprocate that love.
We can only love others fully if we experience God’s love ourselves. We cannot give what we don’t have but we can only give what we have. No wonder many people live unloved and cannot freely give love to others because they have not received the love of God in their hearts.
God Loves You Regardless Of
So the first truth I want you to realize my friend is this: God loves you, regardless of who you are and what you’ve done. My desire is for you to experience the love of God. Many people cannot accept this truth because they think they are unworthy.
Truth is, we are all unworthy and undeserving of this kind of love. But God Himself chose to love us anyway, regardless of our feelings. True love is not an emotion or feeling but a decision.
Way back from eternity past, God has already decided to love us. He already knew who we were and what are we going to do. He knew beforehand that we would fail, fall, and sin against Him but despite that, He still chose to love us anyway.
Fast forward to today, as you read this message, I pray that you will be convinced of this and that you will throw yourself into the loving arms of our Father, the One who’s so in love with you and me, and all the 7 billion plus people in the world living today!