Unshakeable Love.

Last week we were talking about hope and we finished off saying that knowing we are loved allows us to keep our hope in Jesus.

How confident are you that God loves you? Most of us know John 3:16, “For here is the way God loved the world—He gave His only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in Him will never perish but experience everlasting life.” Jesus Christ was a gift given to us by God so that we could have hope and a future in Him. So we could have the hope of salvation and everlasting life.

It is easy to skim over that verse and think, “Yeah, yeah. God loves people” and never take it personally. God doesn’t just love the world, He loves you. Have you ever stopped to think that if Adam and Eve were perfect and never sinned and for generations everyone was just perfect until you came along and decided to go see for yourself, Jesus still would have died just for you? Yes. He would have done it all just so you could have a chance at redemption and eternity. That is how much God loves you.

If we want to run our race and finish it, we need to be mindful (as in our minds need to be full) of the awareness of God’s love for us. God doesn’t just love you when you are “good”. I put good in quotes because no one is good. Jesus said in Mark 10:18, “Only God is truly good.” So even when we think we are doing great, there is always something whether in our hearts or thoughts or actions that makes fall short of the standard of good and that is ok. That is why we have Jesus so we can put on His righteousness.

So yes, God doesn’t just love us when we are good. Romans 5:6-8 says, “For when the time was right, the Anointed One came and died to demonstrate his love for sinners who were entirely helpless, weak, and powerless to save themselves. Now, would anyone dare to die for the sake of a wicked person? We can all understand if someone was willing to die for a truly noble person. But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!”

God’s love for us is without condition. He loves us when we are doing great and winning in life. He loves us when we feel like we are the worst. He loves us when we are happy, and He loves us when we are sad. He loves us when everyone around us thinks we are awesome. He loves us when other people think we suck and are unlovable. He loves us when we are sick as much as He does when we are healthy. He loves us when we are rich as much as when we are barely making ends meet. He loves us whether we are good looking or not so good looking. He loves us when we think we deserve it. He loves us when we think we don’t deserve it. His love is consistent and is not changed by our circumstances.

Why is it important that we know that God’s love is consistent? So that when life’s trials come, we don’t question God’s love for us. If we are convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that God loves us, then no matter what life throws our way our hope is not in some far away God who may or may not want to help us or who may or may not care about our present circumstance. Our hope is in the God who sits with us in the middle of our mess and loves us enough to make a way for us out of that place.

Our hope is in the God who runs to us arms stretched wide and swoops us up to protect us from danger whether we are dirty or clean, deserving or undeserving. Our hope is in the one who gave up everything so we could have it all in Him. When we are in dark places, our eyes need to be on the One we know is looking back at us, not in anger, but with eyes full of love. When we begin to know that God and trust in His love for us, then we can truly begin to live because the words of our Bible become a reality to us.

I will leave you with this, Romans 8:35-36 and 38-39 says, “Who could ever divorce us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One? Absolutely no one! For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats? No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love… Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything! 

So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!”

You are loved beyond measure.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.