Falling Deeper in Love With GodSample

BELIEVE THE LOVE

The book of 1 John is an excellent place to read more about the love of God. If you’re having trouble believing God loves you, spend a lot of time reading and meditating in 1 John.

The truth is, God absolutely adores you. But you have to believe it. First John 4:16 says, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

Sometimes it’s hard for us to imagine how much God loves us. Many people believe in God, but they don’t know that the intent of His heart toward us is good—everything He does is born out of His love.

I came to that realization one day when I was teaching a class at Bible school on God’s love. After class a woman came up and began to give me her educational resume. She told me about her various degrees in theology and world religions from well-known universities.

But then she said, “I have all these degrees and religious education, but this ‘love thing’ you talked about—I don’t have that. I don’t really understand how God can love me.”

Can you imagine, all those hours of study and all that hard work, yet she’d missed the “love thing”—she’d missed the main thing! She’d missed the whole reason that God had created us and then bought us back with the precious blood of Jesus.

My heart went out to her. I could tell that just from that short 50-minute teaching about God’s great love, her heart was crying out for it. She wanted to know more—she wanted to know Him!

I took some time with her, explaining how much God loved her and wanted to be close to her. I prayed with her to receive Jesus and gave her my sermon notes so she’d have the references to a lot of love scriptures—I encouraged her to meditate on them and get them deep into her heart. She left that classroom looking much brighter than when she had first approached me. She was beginning to see that God knew her personally and loved her endlessly, and it made all the difference!