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There are three words that are perhaps the most famous of all. We long for the day when someone will look in our eyes and tell us these three words, “I love you.” We naively think that those feelings which were so passionately communicated to us will never fade.
Perhaps this is part of why we suffer in our minds. We had expectations, believing the people who professed to love us meant it and would stick around for the rest of our lives. Their love was sure to be constant, no matter what twists and turns life would bring.
Sometimes it is hard for us to accept God’s love for us because of those who have laid a foundation by not loving us well. They have left a hole in our hearts, and we have bought the lie that something must have been wrong with us for them to stop loving us.
Friend, someone else’s failure to love you does not have to do with you being unlovable, unworthy of love, or insecure in God’s love.
You are Loveable
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 ESV
If there is ever anyone who would be considered unlovable, it would be an enemy. And that is exactly what we were to God. Yet, He loved us still. Not based on merit, works, personality, looks, or any of the world’s standards, but simply because He set His love on us.
There are no perfect couples. Both love a sinner. And so, when a relationship does not work out, we can tend to think it was our fault, or their fault. Perhaps it was something we did or said that destroyed the love. We were unlovable due to some defect within us. But that is not the love Christ speaks about and demonstrates to us.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 ESV
Christ demonstrated a sacrificial love that loved even when we could never return that love.
Christ loved us first—and last.
Christ showed His love—He did not just say it.
Oh, how different His love is than the romantic love we see demonstrated in our culture. People fall in love and then fall out of love. People become offended and then take their love back. But the word that depicts God’s love for us is the Greek word, Agapao, which means benevolence, esteem, good will, and love that is unconditional and supernatural.
Sometimes the love from others that we have experienced can cast a shadow on God’s love for us. We can have expectations of what God’s love should look like. We can think that His love should translate into a pain-free life and then wonder if God truly loves us when life becomes complicated.
We must protect our belief system and choose to believe that God does love us. He is wild about you, friend. Truly. Do you believe that? You need to. Otherwise, you will go searching for that love everywhere and never find it, only increasing your misery and cementing the false belief that says you are unlovable. That’s not what Jesus says about you.
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” 1 John 4:16 ESV
Abiding in the love that God has for us is unparalleled with any other love in this world. Don’t settle for temporary love. Abide in Christ’s love. We don’t deserve His love, yet He gives us His worth and love.
You Are Worthy of Love
“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:18-19
We are not enough. Fact. But Christ chose to become our sufficiency. We are not “all that”, and yet we are—we are His precious treasure, even though we are a red-hot mess struggling daily with sin and its effects on our lives. Our worth cannot come from ourselves, yet it can come from our Savior.
Our worth is shown by the depths our God went to in order to show us our worth. There is no wider, longer, or higher, or deeper love than the love that God has for us.
You are Secure in His Love
“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? … No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow — not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below — indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35,37-39
This world’s love can be broken, but God’s never can. This world’s love is temporary, but God’s last forever. His love is secure. When other people’s love has left us hurting, knowing that God’s love for us never fails heals our souls.
We need to live loved, friends, in order to love others well. Living loved helps us to accept ourselves and also to accept others as we demonstrate Christ’s love to them. Don’t believe the lies that say you are unworthy of love. Trapped in our sinful nature, we don’t deserve God’s love. But how we feel does not limit God’s love for us. How we perform does not increase it. We will never be more loved than we are right now in this very moment.
The love I wanted so desperately as a child and later as a young adult was seemingly irreparably crushed when someone violated my trust and betrayed me. People did not know how I could love again, and honestly, I wondered what God was up to.
Knowing that God loved me helped me see that the other person who betrayed me was trapped in sin and unable to love me like God. Translating his sin into my unworthiness would not heal me. Interpreting his inability to be faithful as a flaw within me would not give me the acceptance I so longed for.
God’s love is not earned. It is not deserved. It is the incredulous compassionate gift of God that is never revoked. The God Who loves us wants to free us from living a life focused on loves that can never satisfy what only He can.
Live loved, friend, and pour out your heart to the Lover of your soul. He wants to pick up the pieces of your hurting heart and heal you. His love is greater than any earthly love and is secure when life isn’t.
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