God Is Love
God is love. That’s what the Bible says in 1 Jn 4:8, 16. And we must believe that this is so. Think about this. We believed on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved, and he saved us, just like he said he would. Even so, God loves us just like the Bible says. Believe it.
God loves you. You might doubt that God loves you. Perhaps you think that you have to earn God’s love for God to love you. However, our text states that the very nature of God is love. It might help you to see some evidence of God’s love to help you believe that God loves you.
God Loved The World
God loved the world – Jn 3:16. This is remarkable because God and the world are absolutely opposed. In Jn 12:46 Jesus said that he came “a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” The world is in darkness. It is ruled by the rulers of the darkness of this world, Eph 6:12.
According to 1 Jn 5:19, “the whole world lieth in wickedness.” Yet, the love God had for the world is still available to any person who will believe on Jesus. For example, Jesus loved the rich young ruler. In Mk 10:17, “Jesus beholding him loved him.” That man did nothing to deserve the Lord’s love. He was a rich idolater, whose God was his wealth. Yet, Jesus loved him.
God Loves Israel
God loved Israel – Hos 11:1. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” He did love them and yet they were stubborn and rebellious in their journey through the wilderness. Nevertheless, in 1 Ki 10:9, the Queen of Sheba said about Solomon, “because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king.” And in Mal 1:2, 400 years before Jesus came to earth, the Lord said, “I have loved you.”
God still loves Israel and he will save them, Rom 11:25-27. He will reign in Jerusalem and restore them to prominence in the world. They will build the house of the Lord and worship the Lord there through his entire millennial reign.
God Loves You
God loves you – 1 Jn 4:10, 11, 16, 19. Sometimes, we get tripped up by our own understanding of love and think that we have to earn his love. Perhaps we have learned to love like this from other relationships or from trying to please our parents. Wherever we learned this, it isn’t so with the Lord’s love for us.
According to Rom 8:35-39, nothing can separate us from the love of God. If you are going through something that makes you believe God doesn’t love you, get that out of your mind. Even when the Lord rebukes us, he rebukes us out of love, Rev 3:19. And when he chastens us, it is out of his love for us, Heb 12:6.
Conclusion
I have peached tonight with the hope of reminding you that God loves you and his love for you is unchangeable. We love him, because he first loved us. Thank God.