Oh, How God Loves You!

Jesus thought very highly of you, even when you were an enemy of God because of your sin nature. His thoughts of you, thoughts of love, and plans to give you hope and future, brought Him to a moment of great suffering. His desire was to restore your friendship with the Father, despite the state that you were in, a sinful state. So, while you were weak, powerless to help yourself because of your sin nature, in this state, Jesus died for you; love drove Him to this place of death. Jesus’ actions reveal this: “But God shows and clearly proves His love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). You were actually brought into right relationship with the Father, by Christ’s blood (Romans 5:7)!

Right relationship with the Father could only occur because the actions of Jesus Christ made you just as if you never sinned; justification (Romans 5:1)! This miraculous transformation occurred in your spirit, with the old sinful nature destroyed and the nature of God entering in! Consider this miracle; pause and reflect… your nature is now God’s nature! He has placed within you the expressed image of Who He is; that expressed image is Jesus His Son (Hebrews 1:3). There was no quality about any of us that would have resulted in this great gift of God’s love. Yet, His desire was to share Himself with those that were His enemy! Extraordinary! Now with sin abolished because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, there is nothing that separates you from God, from His love. By your faith in what Jesus has done “you are brought into this place of undeserved privilege where you now stand…” (Romans 5:2).

This place of privilege should give you confidence because there is no longer anything separating you from the Father. You are in unity with Jesus Christ, Who is one with the Father. Therefore, you are one with Father and the Son (Ephesians 2:4,5; Colossians 2:9,10;). And the Father has given you the Holy Spirit of His Son Jesus (Galatians 4:6). Jesus’ death demonstrated the destruction of this separation as the veil that prohibited access to the Lord by the Jews was torn in two when the work of the cross was completed (Luke 23:45).

You were saved by grace (undeserved favor) through faith when you were an enemy of God, which restored you to a sinless state (in your spirit). Now you are holy and blameless as the life of God Himself fills you. If His great love saved you when you were His enemy, imagine His love and care for you now that you are His child, one who possesses His Holy Spirit (Romans 5:10). Every day He provides for you by His grace. God has made His love for you clear by giving you His Holy Spirit. Knowing the great love by which you were saved, should help you to understand the love by which you are cared for daily. This should give you hope; a hope that never disappoints (Romans 5:5). Yes, this hope is one that leads you into heaven, but this hope is for right now while you live upon this earth. Your confident hope should be in your salvation which is anything that deals with your well-being: healing, provision, protection, forgiveness. This is what salvation means, the Greek word being Sozo.

How could you doubt God’s love for you with such a great sacrifice given when you were His enemy? Now that you possess His Holy Spirit, the very essence of Him, this should cause you to be secure in His love. Should trials, tribulations or challenges of any kind cause you to doubt? Should you not rejoice in hope of God’s love for you even in the midst of difficulty? You should be full of joy now no matter the circumstance (Romans 5:3). Hope that exists because of the sacrifice of Jesus should not be altered by challenges of life. Hope in God never disappoints (Romans 5:5)! God has proved His love for you through Jesus’ death, resurrection and His life that fills you right now. The fact is “If God is for you, who can ever be against you? Since He did not spare even His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else that we need (Romans 8:31,32)?

God chose you in love to be His child (Ephesians 1:4). He restored you to friendship, to relationship with Him, with full access to all that He is, and gave you the same inheritance that He gave Jesus (Romans 8:17). And that inheritance begins now, while you are living on this earth. You have full access to the throne of grace to receive help at any time, help exactly when you need it (Hebrews 4:16).

Can anything separate you from God’s love? No trial, no difficulty, no trouble of any kind can separate you from the love of God; “No despite all these things, overwhelming victory is yours through Christ, Who loves you (Romans 8:37)! God’s love for you was revealed in Christ Jesus your Lord (Romans 8:39)! Now, He always leads you to triumph in Him (2 Corinthians 2:14).