The Word Love — Morning Devotions

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When a guy declares his love for a girl, girls have been known to respond. Well, show me. Show me that you love me. They want the verb, not the word. So his actions will determine whether she believes that he loves her or not. I want to say this morning and again tomorrow. Three very important words about love and the words are simple. They are God loves you. They could well be the words that could change your life today.

God loves you – why this is so important

Yes, you might have seen those three words on a car bumper sticker or listen to the minister say them.

And of course, it’s one thing to hear these words. It’s another to really understand them in our heart. And if you grew up attending church services, my guess is that you’ve heard this probably thousands of times. Does God love me? After all, there are billions of people in this planet and with many problems worse than mine. Why would God care about my little problems? God, after all, takes care of all creation, the Bible says, actually, that God even cares for sparrows, one of the most numerous species of birds on earth.

And despite their number, the Bible says that God knows each one when they die. So how much more would he care for individual human beings who he made in his image and likeness? And the Bible says in John 3:16 – God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only son so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.

So who did God love? Well, the Bible’s right, God loved the world that includes every human being that ever lived or would ever live on this planet. So here’s the challenge. We can easily believe God loves other people, but we’re just not sure, we can’t comprehend how or why he loved me. After all, we don’t want others to reject us. And so how much more do we hide from God who might reject us forever?

There’s a Facebook site that I saw called God will always love me even when I can’t love myself, and that there are lots of people who don’t like themselves or might even hate themselves. And while you’re in the middle of agony or pain or whatever it is, it’s hard to see things clearly, isn’t it?

And sometimes when you’re suffering, it’s quite difficult to see God’s love. And I think about Job, the man in the Old Testament who went through this extremely difficult period of life. He lost his whole family and virtually everything that he owned, and he went through terrible sickness.

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So he might have felt like that at the moment. He said to God, my ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, he said. I despise myself. That’s job 24:5-6. Have you ever said something like that? He called out, (this is Job), if I go to the east, God is not there. If I go to the west, I don’t find him. And when he is at work in the north, I do not see him. And when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. Job 23:8-9.

Very bleak indeed. But later, in the Book of Job, he came to a new understanding of life and God and this book of Job, it’s well worth reading. It reminds me that no matter what you feel or what happens in your life, God does exist and that God deeply loves you. So no matter how awful things might become for you and no matter what happens, and I know that’s very easy for me to sit here and say that into a microphone, but we can never be separated from God’s love. Of course, God has not forgotten you. And even though it mightn’t feel like it, God is still in control, holding you in the palm of his hand and you can see that in Psalm 139:10.

Let’s Pray

Well, Dear Lord, sometimes we do need in these things to take a reality check about what’s important, what’s not. We don’t know the difference. And sometimes we need some help. So help me today, Lord, to recognise your power and your goodness not only today, but for always. Amen.