God loves you. Let the words sink into your spirit. They are three of the most encouraging words you can ever
hear or speak.
People in our world today are starving for people to tell them that God loves them. Most people receive very
little affirmation in their lives and very little love. Adults have readily confessed to me with tears in their
eyes, “I never heard my father say he loves me” or, “I know my mother must have loved me because of what she did
for me, but after about age ten, I don't recall my mother ever telling me she loved me.”
I know how they feel. My father died when I was only nine months old, and so I have no recollection of his telling
me he loved me. My mother married my stepfather—a hard and critical man—when I was nine years old, and I never
heard him say he loved me. Neither did I ever receive anything from him that was presented with affection or personal
concern. I know the loneliness in spirit that can develop if a person grows up aching to hear unspoken words of
approval, affection, and love.
For years in my ministry, I did not “feel” the love of God in my heart. I knew He loved me on the basis of His
Word, but I did not have a “feeling” that He loved me. It was long after I was adult and had been a pastor for
many years that I had an experience in which I truly felt the love of God filling my heart. It was an experience
I wish every person could have. There's nothing as glorious this side of heaven as knowing that God loves you with
an infinite, unconditional love and that it is out of His love that He has created you, forgiven you, and receives
you fully as His beloved child.
The Hallmarks of God's Love
Let me share with you two great truths about God's love for you:
1. God loves each one of us unconditionally and absolutely. God's love is absolute, and it does not change
over time or according to your behavior. God's love is not influenced by circumstances or situations, and
it cannot be diminished. God can never love you more than He loves you today, and neither can He love you less.
He loves you solely on the basis that He created you, and He chooses to love you—now and every moment of your life.
Nothing that you do, or that happens to you, can separate you from God's love (Rom. 8:35–39).
2. God loves us first. God does not wait for us to come to Him with an expression of love before He extends
love to us. To the contrary! God loves us first. John said it simply and eloquently: “We love Him because He first
loved us” (1 John 4:19).
God is always waiting with open arms, ready to receive those who turn to Him. He longs to embrace us, forgive
us, restore us to full fellowship with Him, and to bless us as His children.
What the Word Says
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword?… Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor
height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35, 37–39)
What the Word Says to Me
What an encouraging word, that nothing—absolutely nothing—can separate us from God's love for us. His love is
always extended to you and to me. It is our responsibility to accept His love, receive it, and delight in it. Those
who do so enjoy an inner freedom and level of self-worth that they cannot experience by any other means.
• Have you had an experience in which you received God's love and forgiveness?
• How do you feel in knowing that God loves you unconditionally, absolutely, and "first"?
Why Some Don't Believe God Loves Them
There are no doubt a number of reasons that people fail to feel or experience the love of God, but in this lesson,
I want to focus on three of them. Often when we seek to encourage another person who is “down” in spirit, we will
find one of these factors at the root of their discouragement. People do not believe God loves them because:
• They have never had a role model of God's love.
• They have been taught incorrectly about God.
• They have gone through difficulties that they believe a loving God could, would, or should have spared them
from experiencing.
Lack of Role Models
My lack of understanding about God's love came largely from a lack of role models. I knew my mother loved me,
but she was the only person in my childhood that I knew with certainty loved me to the point of being there
for me if times were tough—which they frequently were for us.
It isn't enough to have someone tell you that he or she loves you. The person must be there for you
when you need him or her. We each need to experience love in tangible, physical forms. We need the presence, comfort,
and touch of other people.
We especially need this when we are experiencing pain, suffering, depression, rejection, loneliness, tragedies,
crises, sickness, and hard times. We need love that has “arms” that will hug us, hold us, comfort us, and say,
“God loves you, and so do I.”
• Can you recall a time in your life when you were discouraged and someone expressed love to you not only
in words, but in their physical presence? How did you feel?
Jesus knew this human need for an abiding presence of love. He spent much of His last evening before the crucifixioncommanding
His disciples to “love one another” (John 15:17).
One of the central teachings in the early church was that Christians were be role models of God's love one to
another. John wrote, “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).
If you have never experienced the love of God through other people, then find a fellowship of Christian believers
where that love is flowing freely, purely, and in actuality, not just in lip service. Find a church where people
are serving one another and ministering to one another with a loving attitude.
Choose also to be an agent of God's love. Be a role model for others of God's loving presence.
• Have you had a good role model for God's love in your life?
What the Word Says
[Jesus said]: “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than
to lay down one's life for his friends.” (John 15:11–13)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. (1 John
4:7)
What the Word Says to Me
Incorrect Teaching
Many people have grown up from their childhoods with a false understanding of God. If you are such a person,
I invite you today to relearn what you believe to be true about God. God is not a harsh judge with
a long, white beard, sitting on His throne just waiting to pounce on you for doing wrong. That is a picture that
has been painted by some people, but that is not the picture that is presented in the New Testament! The Bible
teaches us that God's very nature—His essence, His personality—is love. God's mercy always balances God's righteousness
(1 John 4:14–16).
The psalmist speaks repeatedly of God's loving-kindness. It is on the basis of God's love that we can hope for
God's salvation, ongoing provision, and deliverance in times of trouble (Ps. 36:7–8, 10–11).
The motivation for God's sending Jesus into the world was love. The most famous verse in all the Bible assures
us of this: “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16).
God desires to reveal himself to you today as a loving Father—one who will protect you, provide for you, forgive
you, help you, bless you, encourage you, and uplift you. His arms are open wide to you. He longs to shower His
love and good gifts upon you and for you to live with Him forever. He also longs to be loved by you. He
wants to be in a loving relationship with you so that you share your heart fully with Him and He, in turn, shares
Himself fully with you.
What encouraging news to our soul, and what encouraging news to share with others!
• In your life, have you received correct teaching about the loving nature of God?
What the Word Says
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16b)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.
They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,
And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures.…
Oh, continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You,
And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
Let not the foot of pride come against me,
And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. (Ps. 36:7–8, 10–11)
What the Word Says to Me
All Things for Good
A third reason that people do not believe God loves them is because they have a false understanding of how God
might use difficulties that come into a person's life. They falsely believe God to be the source, or instigator,
of trouble. They end up blaming God for every tragedy, disappointment, or crisis that comes their way. They ask,
“How could God love me and allow this terrible thing to happen to me?”
The Bible teaches very clearly that good and bad times happen to believers and unbelievers alike. No person
is immune from life's circumstances, both positive and negative (Matt. 5:45). We live in a fallen world in which
both evil and good exist. At no time are we told that God spares Christians from all temptations, trials, or problems.
What we can be assured is that God is with us and remains with us when trouble strikes and that God can
use the trial or difficulty to accomplish a good purpose in our lives. In several places in the Scriptures, God
assures His people that He will never leave them nor forsake them (Deut. 31:6, 8; Josh. 1:5; Heb. 13:5).
God desires for us to be whole—spirit, mind, and body—and His purposes for us are always for our ultimate good
(3 John 2 and Rom. 8:28 below). When we experience a time of difficulty, our first question should not be “Why
me, God?” but rather, “God, what good are you desiring to work in me and through me?” God's purpose in allowing
difficulty into our lives is so that He might either correct us from error or further refine in us those things
that are good. We are constantly in a state of being
• purified—all impurities of sin being burned away from us—or
• perfected—all good things in us being strengthened.
The process of purification or correction is called “chastisement” or “chastening” in the Scriptures. When we
are being chastened, God is calling us to turn away from things that are evil or harmful. He does not want us to
suffer the terrible consequences of sin.
We are assured that “whom the LORD loves He chastens” (Heb. 12:6). God's process is not one of punishment,
which is a response to negative behavior, but of correction, which has a teaching component to it. God's
intent is that we learn a positive lesson so that we might change our ways, grow spiritually, and put ourselves
into a position to receive an even greater blessing from our loving heavenly Father. Just as any loving parent,
God corrects us and teaches us for our good.
The perfecting process is one of ongoing learning; in times of difficulty, the LORD brings to strength those
character traits in us that are godly. It is in times of trouble that we learn in a focused way how to apply God's
wisdom, love, and power. In many ways, the traits of self-control, endurance in faith, and true godliness are forged
in the fires of suffering (2 Peter 1:5–8). The purpose of God in perfecting us is that we might become more useful
servants in God's kingdom—our witness might be brighter, our service more productive and effective. God loves us
enough to want us to grow up into the very likeness of Jesus Christ, His beloved Son!
What the Word Says
He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt. 5:45)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
I will not leave you nor forsake you. (Josh. 1:5)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according
to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. (3 John 2)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
For whom the LORD loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.” (Heb. 12:5–6)
What the Word Says to Me
What the Word Says
But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge
self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to
brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5–8)
What the Word Says to Me
• What new insights to you have into God's nature of love?
• In what ways are you feeling challenged to share a message of God's love with another person? What is the
most loving way in which you might share that message?
From Sharing the Gift of Encouragement
by Charles Stanley. Copyright 1998 by Charles Stanley.
