God loves you… yes, you! (Feb 08 2025)

God loves you… yes, you! Perhaps you’ve never thought about God. As you read this blog you might think “How can the God I’ve never heard of, love me?” Or if you have heard about Him, maybe you think you are not important enough, or that you are too bad or sinful for God to love you. Have you prayed but not received the answer you wanted so you are now sure it must be because He doesn’t care about you?  

First of all, God loves you! God loves you just because He does!!! “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) You are very important to Him! “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  (Zephaniah 3:17) God sees you as He created you to be, valuable and having a divine purpose for your life. “Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:26)

The problem is we get caught into legalistic thinking, that we have to earn God’s love by something we do or don’t do or that we are too bad, too unlovable, too unimportant, too ­­­(fill in the blank). “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” (Ephesians 2:8-9).  (emphasis mine)

This is probably the most well-known verse in the Bible. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) (emphasis mine). Now repeat that with your name. “For God so loved ----- that he gave his one and only Son, that when ----- believes in him, ----- shall not perish but have eternal life.” When we submit our lives to Him and give Him full control, He works in our lives through the Holy Spirit to fulfill us and glorify Him.

Here are a couple more: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life." (John 5:24) and also "That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:9-10).

Secondly, God has not abandoned you. Never has; never will. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37)

He wants a relationship with you.  Yes, He knows everything about what you think and what you’ve done but that doesn’t mean that He has stopped loving you or given up on you. He loves it when you talk with Him, anytime, anywhere, about anything. He is never too busy or too tired. “But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.” (Psalm 66:19) He loves it when you are connected with Him, whether in prayer or just being aware of His presence there with you at all times. 

God always hears our prayers “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14). The key words here are “according to His will.”  He always answers but sometimes it is not the answer we are looking for. The answer might be “not right now” or even “I have something better I’ll give” but because He is a compassionate Lord, we know that His answers are always the best ones! (There will be more blogs about prayer, knowing God’s will, etc)

Thirdly, God wants to help you. He wants to walk through life with you, guide you and yes, even redirect you when you get on the wrong path. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) He gives His children the Holy Spirit to do this. The Holy Spirit will help you look at how you think about things so you can make necessary changes in what you believe, your attitudes, your choices, and your behaviour. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

We can get discouraged at times but we cannot rely on our feelings about these things. Because Satan hates everything and everyone that God loves, he will try to convince you that you are too hopeless, too sinful, too whatever, and that God doesn’t love you and won’t forgive you. Satan twists truth and tells lies to deceive, to cause doubt, to shame, to condemn. But God sees us as He created us to be, valuable and having a divine purpose for our lives.

The better we know God the easier it becomes to trust Him.

The more we trust Him, the easier it becomes to listen and follow Him.

The more we follow Him, the more we see how trustworthy He is.

Blessings, Pastor Judy