“God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.”[i]
Saint Augustine, pastor, theologian, and philosopher

God loves you – just pause and think about that. The very God who is right now ruling and reigning over every square inch of the universe knows you (Matthew 10:30) and loves you. God who created the stars, planets, and solar system for His glory, also uniquely created you (Psalm 139:13-17). The One whose ways are higher than ours is redeeming all things for His glory and offering Himself to us for our eternal joy. But life is hard. We may know in our head that God has a plan, but struggles and disappointments can leave us asking in our heart, “Does God really love me?”

 As God introduces Himself in the Old Testament, God says He is “abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). David writes, “Your steadfast love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). Psalm 119:64 says, “The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love.” Does God love you? The answer is a resounding “Yes!”

In 1 John 4:7-8, the Apostle called the beloved writes, “Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Is God only love? Of course not. But the very concept of love is introduced into creation by God. Love is part of the essence of God’s character. Eternity, moral absolutes, and creation all point us to the Creator. So does love. We know love because it comes from God. As we understand true love (1 Corinthians 13:4-7), we catch a greater glimpse of who God is.

As humans, we can be quite flippant with love. We fall in and out of love. We feel love, or we feel nothing, and therefore, love must be gone. Love can be used to manipulate and control. Our version of love is often cheap, a thing of convenience. It is self-serving. Our broken hearts pervert love. God’s way purifies and preserves true love. John writes, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

“But this or that doesn’t feel loving,” you may say. The reason we think this way or perceive certain actions from God as unloving is because our definition of love is broken. We have to let God define love. Because our way of loving is fallen and earthly, it produces flawed expectations. God’s ways are higher than ours, and that includes His way of loving. God truly does love you and He shows it in an extravagant, out of this world way.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 1 John 4:9 (NLT)

Like any great affection, love needs action. It needs to be demonstrated. It needs to be proved. Evangelist Billy Graham was known for often saying, “God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’”[ii] The proof of God’s love for you is found at the cross.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

You and I are included in the world! It’s the word cosmos. Nobody is excluded from the infinite, steadfast love of God. Now, because of our pride, we may be tempted to respond to such a truth with, “Of course…I’m pretty lovable!” But that isn’t the case at all. Each person is immensely valuable, but that’s not the same as being lovable.

The Imago Dei and The Fall

From the very beginning, humanity has been created in the image of God. On the first page of the Bible, the book of Genesis says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). We call that the Imago Dei – meaning every person born, both men and women, are an image bearer of the Creator. At the core, that means every person is valuable and worthy of dignity and respect; not for what we do or a particular group we belong to, but because of the very essence of our being. There is nothing that a person can do that erases the stamp of their Creator. As God’s image bearers, we are the ambassadors and representatives of the Creator. We have been given dominion over God’s good creation. What an amazing reality that it is that we bear the image of God, but are we lovable in our nature and actions? The honest and objective answer is “no.”

The magnificence of the Genesis story in chapters one and two takes a terrible turn in chapter three. We fall. We rebel. God had placed humanity in a beautiful garden. He had provided food, human relationships, and ultimately Himself. But we rejected that truth for a lie. Adam and Eve betrayed God’s kindness. They broke the one restriction God had given them. They ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam sinned against God and, as a representative of all humanity, he led the human race into sinful rebellion against the Creator. Because of sin, God curses Adam, Eve, and all of future humanity. These amateur sinners quickly became pros. In the next few chapters of human history, we see jealousy, murder, lying, revenge, polygamy, wickedness, and nearly worldwide destruction.

From the garden on, we have all lived in a fallen, broken world. Are physical trials and suffering by divine decree or a natural consequence of our fallen world? The answer is “yes,” it’s a both/and. How we each are uniquely affected by the Fall of Genesis chapter 3 is sovereignly determined by God. The Fall has a unique physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual impact on each person. This is what Romans 8:22 means, when the Apostle Paul writes, “That the whole creation has been groaning together.” The groan is because we, and all of creation, have been captured and are waiting to be rescued (redemption –Romans 8:18-25).

Paul on several occasions summarizes the effect of the Fall on humanity, and it isn’t pretty. “For we ourselves,” Paul writes, “were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). The reality for fallen humanity is that in and of ourselves, we are far from loving or lovable. We have a serious problem – sin. We weren’t in the garden, but Adam led humanity’s rebellion against God and we have joyfully followed suit. If you have any doubts about that, the 10 Commandments provide conclusive proof.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them…

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

Exodus 20:2-17

We have all broken these commandments, time and time again (Romans 3:23). Even on the commandment of murder, there’s no escaping on a technicality. In teaching on this specific commandment, Jesus said, “Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22). Later the Apostle John echoes Jesus’ teaching. He writes, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). We are 0 for 10, so we stand guilty before God (James 2:10).

We are sinners by nature and by choice. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” The penalty for sin has always been death. God declared that all the way back in the Garden of Eden. That is bad news. Actually, it’s compoundingly bad news. The consequences of sin do include physical death, but also what the Bible calls the second death – and it’s much worse than the first.

The second death is a place of God’s unrelenting judgment and wrath against sin. This place is a place of eternal suffering called Hell. The Gospels describe Hell as a place of “outer darkness,” “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “eternal fire prepared for the devil,” “eternal punishment,” “torment,” and “anguish” (Matthew 25:30; 25:41, 46; Luke 16:23-24). With God, it’s His way or the highway. That wide, multi-lane highway does, in fact, lead to Hell. Even Hell burns eternally to the glory of God.

We need to let that sink in for a moment. That is really bad news. But this bad news paves the way for the really, reallygood news. Good news that we call the Gospel.

God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

While we were at our worst, most broken, rebellious, sinful, godless state of living – God demonstrated, displayed, and proved His LOVE for us at the cross. CHRIST DIED FOR US! There at the cross, our sin and rebellion collided with the unmatched love, mercy, and salvation of God! Seven hundred years before Jesus Christ would die on the cross, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, wrote of the suffering Savior:

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Isaiah 53:3-9

Just reading that passage of Scripture leaves me in awe of the love and mercy of God. We, like rebellious sheep, went our own way, but God laid the punishment for our sin on Jesus. At the Cross of Calvary, God was displaying His love, mercy, and power as never before. Jesus willingly laid down His life to pay the penalty for sin. Nobody forced Him (John 10:17-18).

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

After his death, Jesus was quickly buried in the borrowed tomb of a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus did die to pay for sin, but He rose from the dead. After Jesus’s resurrection, His students walked and talked with Him, ate with Him, listened to Him teach, touched Him, worshiped Him, and watched Him gloriously ascend into Heaven (Acts 1:9). These disciples wrote down their first-hand, eyewitness accounts of Jesus rising from the dead!

The Bible declares Jesus as King, ruling and reigning on the throne of Heaven. This great King loves you. Through His work on the cross and subsequent resurrection, He has made a way for us to be saved from our sin. We must repent of our sin and believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” This is the good news. This is the one and only Gospel. Nothing more and nothing less. Turn from sin and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:15).

If you do, you will be pardoned from the eternal consequences of your sins, that is called justification. You will immediately have a right standing before God. You will be given the gift of eternal life – that is called glorification. Death will no longer be a terror to you, but an exit from the temporal struggles of this earth and entrance into the eternal, everlasting presence of God (2Corinthians 5:6-8). Between the moment of justification and the future hope of glorification is the promise of God’s comforting presence in your life. This is called sanctification. Justification, sanctification, and glorification are each made possible because of the extravagant love of God demonstrated through the death and triumphant resurrection of His only son Jesus.

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus

In the Gospel of John, we are introduced to a special family that Jesus became friends with. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived in a little village called Bethany, which was just a couple of miles outside of Jerusalem. It seems from several biblical stories that Jesus spent significant time with these siblings. I think it was likely that when the Lord traveled to Jerusalem for Jewish holidays, He stayed in Bethany at Martha’s house with His disciples.

In John chapter 11, a message is sent to Jesus that Lazarus is really sick. It was a sickness that was so serious it warranted getting word to Jesus right away. The message was simple, “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (John 11:3). Jesus was a renowned miracle worker. Surely Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ connection with and hospitality to this famous rabbi had earned them a healing. Jesus’ response is quite unexpected and strange. Here’s what the Apostle John records:

When Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So… (John 11:4-5, italics added for emphasis)

They loved Jesus. Jesus loved them. Lazarus was sick and Jesus healed sick people. “So…” you would expect that the loving, miracle-working Jesus would have canceled His plans and immediately made His way back to Bethany. But that isn’t what happened. John records, “When He heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (John 11:6).

After the sisters sent word to Jesus, I picture them waiting with great anticipation for the Lord’s arrival. But day after day, hour after hour as their brother grew weaker, Jesus was nowhere to be found. I imagine Mary and Martha thinking during those long days, “Where is Jesus? I thought He loved my brother? I thought He loved me?” And then, Lazarus died.

Four days later, Jesus and His disciples arrived in Bethany. When Martha finally sees Christ, she seems to give Him a piece of her mind. “Lord,” she says, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21). A little later, Mary falls at the feet of Jesus and says the same thing. They were friends with a miracle worker and they desperately needed His help, but Jesus didn’t show up in time. They were heartbroken and grief stricken. Their faith was shaken, because Jesus had failed to meet their expectations.

Like Mary and Martha, we often link God’s love with our expectations. When God “fails” to meet our expectations, we might question His love for us. In those moments we must let truth trump our feelings.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. Psalm 103:11

For your steadfast love is great above the heavens. Psalm 108:4

“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10

I have loved you with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31:3

Jesus really loved Lazarus, so why didn’t He heal him? In the gospels Jesus had actually done miracles across great distances without even being present with the person. He certainly could have done that for Lazarus, but He didn’t. Why? Because Jesus was going to show Martha, Mary, and Lazarus more than a miracle.

The Lord traveled to the tomb where His friend was buried and there He wept. The crowds of people commented, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:36). Christ’s love for Lazarus was evident in the tears that He shed and His power would be unmistakable in what He did next. Jesus called Lazarus by name and raised him from the dead. News of this miracle would spread throughout the entire region. Jesus had brought a dead man back to life!

What happened at Lazarus’ tomb wasn’t just an incredible miracle, it was a preview of something greater. Christ’s death and resurrection showed that His power and His love are both limitless! With Christ, death is not the end. Eternal life is made possible by the love of God! This is the hope that Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and the disciples were given that day in Bethany. A.W. Tozer writes, “…because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.”[iii]

When we believe in Jesus (John 11:25), we are confident that in every season of life we are a recipient of God’s steadfast, unchanging love. Christ is the declaration of God’s love to the world. Jesus is also the definitive proof that God understands and empathizes with our suffering and sorrow. Being loved by God doesn’t mean an easy, pain-free life. God does not promise to eliminate struggles, but He does vow to go through them with us. His presence is what provides perseverance through the pain. God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). When God professes His love, He promises His presence.

My wife, Jennifer, found this beautiful poem and shared it with me. She has shared it with some of our friends who are mentioned in this book.

Pain knocked at my door and said she’d come to stay.

Though I would not welcome her but bade her go away,

Still she entered —

And like my shade she followed after me,

And from her stabbing stinging sword

No moment was I free.

And then one day another knocked most gently at my door.

I cried, “No! Pain is living here; there’s no room for more.”

And then I heard His tender voice, “‘Tis I, be not afraid.”

And from that day He entered in – the difference that it made!

For though He did not bid her leave — my strange unwelcome guest,

He taught me how to live with her;

And no one ever guessed that we could dwell so sweetly here –

My Lord, and pain and I – within this fragile house of clay,

While years slip slowly by.[iv]

God recognizes that grief is not something you get over, but something you go through. He promises to go through it with you. One of my favorite song lyrics simply says, “Sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child.”[v] Christ walks through the storms of life with us. He stands right with us as a seemingly endless amount of waves crash against us. He stands in the fire with us. He is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). We do not have to fear what is coming, because He is with us. He will strengthen and help us. And when we don’t feel like we can stand, He says, “I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

In difficult and challenging circumstances, we can be confident in our loving, heavenly Father’s power, purpose, and providence! God is in complete control. All that happens exists for His glory. His ways are not our ways. And what makes us embrace these truths is God’s loving embrace of us. The glory of His power is equally matched by the majesty and magnificence of His love for you and me.

Prayer of confession and belief –

God, thank you for creating me and loving me. I confess that I have rebelled against you. I have broken your laws. But in your kindness, you have made a way for me to escape the eternal consequences of my sins. I repent of my sin and turn to you as Lord and Master of my life. I believe that you died and rose again from the grave. I stand in awe that you know everything about my past, present, and future and still without any hesitation profess your love for me. I give you praise and glory. Amen.

For Further reading: John 3:16; Romans 3:23; 5:8; 6:23; 10:9, 13; Psalm 136