God is love. How often have you heard or read that? How often have you heard someone say, ‘God loves you!’? Did you believe it? Have you ever wondered about the people around you, and whether God does love them?
Just this morning, on the bus to work, I looked at my fellow passengers and wondered if God does love them. Does God love the Indian bus driver, the half-drunk man mumbling to himself, or the two schoolgirls in cute ponytails? Does God love the irate driver yelling at another driver who cut him off in traffic? Does God love my co-workers (even the lazy ones), or my racist employer? What about the rude salesperson whose actions show I’m not good enough to patronise their shop or the minivan drivers who over-charged me a few weeks ago? What about the woman who begs in town and eats in a nice restaurant that most of those who give her money can’t afford to go to? What about bullies and those who’ve killed Christians around the world? Or the greedy politicians past and present, or what about murderous dictators, rapists, thieves? What about terrorists, atheists and agnostics? What about me, does God love me?
The answer and proof are all laid out in Scripture — yes, God loves everyone, the entire world, every person He’s ever created, from a garden called Eden to a little village by the Nadi River. Before dying for us, Yeshua Himself testified to a Pharisee named Nicodemus that God loves the whole world. However, Scripture also declares that while God is love, He is also just. We respond to His love by accepting His Terms. And when you think about everything He’s done for you, us, me, and the whole world, those terms are simple: Accept His Son and receive Him as your Lord and Saviour.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 KJV
Accepting God’s love and commandments took me years. I first had to believe that He did love me. And then I had to learn to accept His Son, Yeshua Hamashiach. My problem was that I was looking at Him and His love through my human, earthly experience, through the lens of how others treated me. I judged Him, and measured and sifted His love through my past, from when my mother tried to abort me (a fact I learned from my grandmother when I was almost forty years old), through my parents’ separation and then divorce, getting bullied and struggling in school, grieving over my grandfather’s death, through sexual harassments from former male co-workers and being unfairly treated both at work and by a society that looks down on women, especially single ones.
I went through the motions of confessing Yeshua as my Lord and Saviour, even in public as part of our church’s ‘witnessing and soul-saving’ service. Like those ‘altar calls’ you see TV evangelists perform, the lip service was all mine. I rationalised my lack of commitment and withheld my love from Him. After all, if He loved me, He wouldn’t have allowed all those bad things to happen to me, would He?
It still amazes me how patient God is. How all-seeing. He drew me closer to Him through sermons, songs, Bible verses, and the words of strangers until I surrendered. He kept showing me John 3:16 time and time again, one of the most well-known verses in the Bible, and one I’d heard so often growing up. But what He drew me to was not simply the words, but to the One who spoke them. He opened my eyes and ears, and my reading mind, to read the words carefully and that’s when I realised that Yeshua Himself first uttered those famous words. Before my Sunday school teachers read them out and countless preachers shouted them from the pulpits, the Word spoke His truth all those years ago to a man also searching for proof of God’s love, in the middle of the night somewhere in Israel.
God loves the world and the world includes me so He loves me. God gave His Son, so if He gave His Son for me, He loves me. His only begotten Son is Yeshua, the very One speaking the words, and Yeshua loves me. That ‘whosoever‘ mentioned there means whoever believes in Him, whoever you are, whatever your race, sex, age, past, size, shape, personality, phobias, allergies, or upbringing, God sees each of us just as we are. And He loves us, first just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us the way we are. And that’s something else I’ve learned – God loving me before I was born. When my mother tried to get rid of me while I was still in her womb, God protected me and saved me. Just as He saved me from depression and suicidal thoughts caused by the deep hurts and grief through all the years. When I turned my back on Him, He remained faithful and kept calling me back to Him.
His love is clear and shows in His faithfulness and justice, forgiving me each time I confess my sins. It is shown in how He gently reminds and guides me when I wander off and lose my way. His love was there shielding me before I was born and continues to hold me close in the small ordinary moments of my life. Yes, God is love. He loves us, you and me, from now and forevermore.
Prayer
Father God, Thank you for your love, mercy and grace! Help us to love the way You love us. In Yeshua, we pray. Amen.
Photo credit: Image is by Sebadelval on Pixabay
