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
John 3:16 (NIV).
This is a question I have been asking, I suppose, all my life. Why would God love me? I am nothing special, I can be greedy, I am often lazy. All too often I put myself first rather than reaching out to others. I find it easier to lie or cheat instead of taking responsibility for my actions, my self-indulgence rather than self-control means I am over weight and in debt. So what is there to love about me? So why does God love me?
God is a holy God, holy means “Specified or Set Apart”. Also scripture reveals God to be: God the Father; God the son and God the Holy Spirit, what we call “The Trinity”. He is one God with three persons, and in the Bible he often refers to himself as “Us”. So he is not lonely and he does not need anyone else. He is fully fulfilled already. So I ask again, why would God Love me?
Even so, God the creator created me in his own image (Genesis 1:26), he created me to be in relationship with him, he created me to love him and for him to love me. But what is love, if it is not freely given and freely received? So I was also given free choice and was able to choose whether to love God, instead I chose to love myself. So I can conclude then, that there is NOTHING from me that contributes to a relationship with God.
If I contribute nothing then it must God contributing everything. God is Love, it is who he is, love is his very nature.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:8-10 (NIV)
In his book “Incomparable”, Andrew Wilson expands on this in detail, I found this to be a fabulous book and well worth reading. However to paraphrase Andrew, the love of God is just so big we cannot get our arms around it, it is so big it is beyond my comprehension and ability to describe. But that is OK because the punch line is “Not that we have loved God but he has loved us” and sacrificed his son for us. So why does God love me? – Because that is who he is! Regardless of my selfish and rebellious nature, the almighty God loves me because, he made me and I am precious in his sight. What has this cost me? NOTHING! It is a completely, God given, FREE gift. Isn’t that amazing!
Someone, I forget who, it might have been my Home Group Leader, once said to me, “When we realise what this means, we stop talking so much about how much we love God and instead start praising God more and more for his love for us”. Because God’s love is so constantly wonderful how can we not love God!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will –
Ephesians 1:3-5 (NIV)
Wow, praise be to God indeed! God has loved us since before the creation of the world and he will love us until the end of eternity. He loves us so much that he gave everything so that, despite who I am, I could be in a close family relationship with Him as his adopted son. Doing this by, sacrificing his one and only Son, Jesus, the only blameless and perfect man, who took the punishment I deserve. Praise upon praise upon praise be to God.
