You Are Loved.

You are loved by someone you can never meet yet face to face. Someone who cares about you more than everyone in the world combined, who knows you better than you know yourself, who knew you before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and formed you in your mother’s womb: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). He is into every detail of your life, even knowing the number of hairs on your head: “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30).

You are loved more than you can ever fathom. He wore His love in the form of a crown of thorns on His head, stripes on His back, nails in His hand, and death on a cross for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). “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” (John 3:16). You may not believe that, nor care about what Jesus did for you; nevertheless, it does not change the truth.

You may be thinking, “If God loved me so much, why is my life so messed up? Nothing seems to go right. My plans fail, my life is just one heartbreak after another.” I struggle with this also. If God loves me, why can’t I find joy or peace, or why do I have so much pain and other problems? Often I have prayed and prayed and still no answers. Things did not change. Days turn to months and months to years. Does it mean I’m not loved? No. It rather tells me some things about God. One, He is God and I’m not. He does what He pleases. He answers “yes,” “no,” and “later.” What it does in my life is to cause me to seek Him continually to get His help, to get some answers, to read and learn more about His ways, and to examine myself to see if sin is the problem. I learned endurance, to wait on Him and to trust. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

We have to trust Him, because He is too big for our little minds to figure out. It is a matter of faith, for we won’t have all the answers down here. After Adam’s sin, he and Eve were cast out of the garden, but God knew they would sin and had a plan. Genesis 3:15 gives us some details: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed [the lost, see Ephesians 2:2] and her Seed [Jesus Christ]; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. While Satan bruised Christ’s heel (caused Him to suffer), Christ dealt a death blow to Satan’s head at the cross.

Think of this verse: “For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16). He came to save fallen men, not fallen angels. See, you are loved! John put it this way, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [the atoning sacrifice] for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He loved us before we knew Him and before we loved Him.

Think of what Isaiah 52:14 tells us: “His visage [face or appearance] was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” He could barely be recognized. He who had never sinned, let man do these things to Him for our sins. Is He not worthy to be loved and worshipped? Humble yourself, talk to Him, ask for forgiveness of your sins. He can change you from the inside out, as you give Him your life. Go find a Christ-centered church. Read the Bible. A good place to start is the Gospel of John. And then you can say what John wrote: “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

—H.S. J.L.