Introduction
Sometimes life gets us down. We may fail in our efforts. We may lose loved ones. We may experience chronic sickness or handicaps. We may not experience the love that we expect from those close to us. We may be treated unfairly by our enemies. And the list goes on. It is easy under such circumstances to feel that no one loves us. Have you ever felt that way? We all do sometimes. But there is someone who loves you. God loves you! That may seem like just a cliché, but is it?
God's Love Is Seen in the Creation
When God created the heavens and earth, He created all things that man would need for life, health, and happiness. He created them in abundant supply. Now, 6-10,000 years later, what we need is still in abundant supply. Certainly, man has developed much of what we use, but he developed them from the earth, sun, animals, and plants which God created long ago!
Our bodies are, as the psalmist declared, "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:13-15). The systems within us are suited for our needs, including our health and happiness. When things go wrong, nature provides the means whereby they can be repaired.
From the beginning, God realized that "It is not good that the man should be alone," so He said, "I will make him a helper comparable to him" (Genesis 2:18, NKJV). He then proceeded to make the woman as a helper for the man (Gen. 2:18-24).
Truly, God's love is seen in the creation!
God's Love Is Seen in His Forgiveness
When God created the first couple (Gen. 1-2), He placed them in a beautiful garden wherein was found all that they needed for food and enjoyment. He gave them a simple law, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”" (Gen. 2:16-17). But enter the "cunning” (subtle, shrewd, crafty, sly, sensible, Thayer) serpent. He convinced the first woman to disobey God's law and eat the forbidden fruit and give to her husband to eat (Gen. 3:1-6). The result was immediate spiritual death (separation from God - Isaiah 59:1-2; James 2:26) and eventually physical death. They did not die on that day, but the process of aging, sickness, and death was immediately set in motion (Rom. 5:14). The first couple was expelled from the garden, and a life of hardship began (Gen. 3:16-24).
But God did not leave man without a remedy. Beginning with Genesis 3:15, He began to work a plan for the forgiveness of man's sins. Throughout the remainder of the Old Testament period, He foretells numerous times the coming of a "seed", through whom "all the nations of the earth" would be "blessed" (Gen. 22:18), "Messiah" (Dan. 9:25-26 "son," "counselor," "Prince of peace" (Is. 9:6), "Branch" (Is.11:1), etc.
In the New Testament, Paul urges the Ephesians, "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." (Eph 4:32). What does the Apostle mean by the clause, "just as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you?" early in the New Testament record, Joseph, the betrothed wife of Mary, is told by the angel of the Lord, (Matt 1:21) “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Later, Jesus would declare, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10).
Paul writes in Galatians 4:3, "So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world." The "seed of the woman" (Gen. 3:15; Gen. 22:18) has come! He has come to save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21).
His forgiveness is available to us today. John writes in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
God's love is seen in His forgiveness, a forgiveness made possible through His Son.
God's Love Is Seen in the Death of His Son
Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-8 that Christ Jesus gave up equality with God and "Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2:8). Why? Paul answers (Rom. 5:8-9):
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
John writes in 1 John 4:9, " By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him." Jesus had declared in John 3:16-17:
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. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
God's love is seen in the death of His Son.
God's Love Is Seen in the Answer to Prayer
John writes in 1 John 3:22, " and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." He writes in 1 John 5:14-15:
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
Here is the promise that God will give us what we ask in prayer. But notice there are two conditions: 1) We must keep God's commandments; 2) We must ask according to His will. James writes in James 4:3, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." Further, there are some things that it is not God's will that we have because it is not good for us. God knows what is best for us and will not give it to us in answer to prayer. For this, we should be thankful!
God loves us. He knows what we need the most, and provides it for us (See Matt. 6:31-32; Phil. 4:6).
Conclusion
God loves you. His love is seen in the creation, His forgiveness, the death of His Son, and His answer to prayer.