Accepting You Are Loved

A key to a fulfilled life is accepting you are loved by God.
                           
            For God so loved the world
            that He gave His only begotten Son,
            that whoever believes in Him
            shall not perish, but have eternal life.
                                                    John 3:16

This is a very popular verse. It tells us that we are loved by God so much, that He was willing to give His only Son on our behalf. He let His Son take the punishment that we deserved. How many of us would be willing to let someone we love accept the punishment for someone else who deserved it? Would we give our loved one in their place? Yet that is exactly what God did for us. Why did He do it ? According to John 3:16, which we read earlier, it is because of His love for us.

It is hard for us to accept we are loved by God because we measure by our human standards. There is also the enemy of our souls who doesn't want us to realize we are loved by God. We may think of all the horrible things we have done and say to ourselves, "how could God love me after all I have done?" His love for us is not like human love. If somebody wrongs us, we tend to go away from that person, but God isn't like that. Maybe if I use one illustration from how we as humans act it might help us to get just a small glimpse of how great God's love is for us. When a parent has a child, no matter what that child does, the parent always loves that child. If the child disobeys it can strain the relationship, but the parent doesn't stop loving the child. God's love for us is greater than any parent child love. So yes, when we disobey it affects our relationship with God, but it does not affect His love for us.

We all have a past, we have all done things that were worthy for God to stop loving us, but He hasn't. The Bible says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8). You see, according to the Bible, God didn't wait for us to be good enough for Christ to die for us. No, He did it while we were doing the acts we are ashamed of. That was and is how He demonstrates His love towards us.

So let me encourage you today, accept you are loved by God !!!