A few years ago, my friends and I started taking some quizzes to figure out what makes each of us feel loved. Was it the act of giving a gift, saying an affirming word, spending quality time together, being near someone or in a hug or arm around their shoulder, or doing something helpful for someone? Finding out what made each of us feel the most loved in our friend group truly changed the way we interacted and how we encouraged one another!
What makes you feel the most loved? For me, I feel the most loved when someone does something helpful for me. For years, I was always the person having to take charge on a project or the only roommate to call in a maintenance request when something broke where we lived. I’ll never forget moving into a new place with a new group of roommates, and one of the girls replaced a broken lightbulb before I had to do it. I was beside myself with joy!
God’s Perfect Love
Every single human being, whether a follower of Jesus or not, desires to be deeply loved and known. It’s how God created us to be. First John 4:7-8 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person who does not love does not know God because God is love.” Right there in Scripture, we see why we desire to love and be loved. Love is from God, and God is love.
I believe one of the main reasons why people turn away from the Lord or reject Him entirely is because they don’t believe that God is loving. They see God only as an angry and judgmental god who doesn’t actually care about them. Now, do we see God as angry and as a judge in Scripture? Yes we do in response to sin. But God is also deeply merciful and gracious.
God’s Faithful Love
I want you to think of seasons of your life where you have felt most loved by God and, in contrast, seasons of your life where you have felt unloved or forgotten by God. For some, it’s easier to believe that God is love when you’re in a season where things are going the way you hoped, and it’s harder to believe that God is love when prayers continue to go unanswered. At least that’s how certain seasons of my personal walk with the Lord have felt. Have you felt that way, too?
One of my favorite parts in Scripture comes from Joshua 4 when God instructs the Israelites to set up “stones of remembrance” to remind His people how He rescued them. In seasons where I falter in my belief that God is loving, Joshua 4 always comes to mind. When I struggle to believe that God loves me, I look back on my life at my own “stones of remembrance” and recall the many ways God has shown His love for me. And you know what? Even if God had never shown me in my own life that He loved me, all I’d have to do is look to the cross and see how God loved me (and us) through His Son, Jesus, dying for us.
God is love, and love comes directly from Him. I pray you come to believe this truth if you don’t already. I also want to challenge you to look back at all the ways God has shown you He loves you. May we never forget the storehouses of love that God has lavished upon us.
