Jesus Loves Me: That's All that Matters

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

God's love for us is inconditional. In fact, God loved us enough to send His Son for us even while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

God did not wait for us to get our act together, but sent Jesus so that He could reconcile us to Himself:

"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:19)

Nothing can separate me from God's Love.

For the longest time, and even recently, I have realized still that I had placed conditions on God's love. If things were going well in my life, then I was assured that God was for me.

But if things were difficult, if I was going through trials, then I would waver. "Where is God in the midst of these hardships? Why am I going through all of this?"

God wants to break those doubts out of our lives. Also, He allows us to endure hardships to test and refine our faith (1 Peter 1:17).

God wants us to rest fully in Him, to labor, to make it a priority to enter His rest and receive from Him all things.

Consider what Joseph went through. God had given him two dreams, in which his brothers and even his parents would bow down to him. Yet he endured many trials before God finally accomplished all that He had dreamed, all that He had planned for Joseph.

So too God allows hardships to take place, so that we mature, we grow in grace, and receive more from Him:

"3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:3-5)

and

"But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." (James 1:4)

God's love is all that matters. Whatever you have thought or be thinking, whatever you have done or may done, nothing can separate you from the love of God:

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Whatever good or bad comes your way, know that God's love for you is there, is real, and is going nowhere!

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13:5)

His love is unconditional, independent of your circumstances and certainties. Jesus loves you--that's all that matters!

Jesus is Savior Every Day, Not Just the Day You First Believed

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2:20-21)

Jesus did not just save from death, hell, and the grave.

Jesus is in the saving business all the time!

He remains our Savior, every day!

This revelation is lost on so many people. They know that Jesus saved them from eternal damnation, but then they think that they are on their own in this life going forward.

It is all too common to hear Christians say "I know that I am going to heaven when I die. But it's getting through the day to day that terrifies me."

Huh? That makes absolutely no sense!

Paul the Apostle wrote very clearly: "I live because of Jesus!"

John the Beloved records Jesus' comforting words to His disciples before He died on the Cross:

"Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also." (John 14:19)

Because He lives, we live!

How can we live if we think that this life is all on us, all dependent on us?

Did Jesus not promise us eternal life?

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

It's everlasting life! It's a life that cannot be taken away!

Consider the powerful comfort which Paul the Apostle wrote to the Romans:

"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 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Nothing can separate us from our loving Father, because we have the spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15), the spirit of Sonship, as we have Christ in us (Colossians 1:27), and God now sees us oin His Son!

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17)

Jesus, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) is Savior. That's His Name!

Let Him be Your Savior today, not just on the first day that you first believed on Him!

God's Love is Unconditional--Independent of All Circumstances

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

This is yet another difficult message, a difficult revelation for me to accept.

It really is easy for us to believe that God loves us when things are going well.

Do we believe that He loves us when things are NOT going well?

His Love for us has nothing to do with what is going on around us.

God sent His Son into this fallen world without our knowledge or permission.

He loves us passionately, even if we don't get what is going on all the time.

I have received some interesting news, so who knows what will happen.

I used to wonder if God loved me when things were not going the way that I wanted them to go.

Now I realize the full meaning behind "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."

We love because He First LOVED US!

I love God because I know that He loves me. He loved me first! (1 John 4:19)

Part of the struggle has also included seeing God's love as something that cannot coexist with trouble.

That's not true at all.

Let's start with the truth. God loves me! God is in love with me!

From there, we take into account everything else that is happening.

His love came first, regardless of what is happening. At this time, it has become more than essential for me to trust, to believe in that love, regardless of circumstances.

Man's Sin Cannot Stop God's Love

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

I  have begun meditating on God's love more deeply, the sins which capture people and hook them in, and why is it that so many people are unable to break free.

People acknowledge their struggle with addiction. They call themselves "addict" many times, and then they work hard to break free.

I then realized something: condemnation so powerfully hooks people, that they cannot break away. In many cases, it seems pretty clear to me that they feel that they cannot come to God with help.

It takes the love of the Father for us to break free of all the lusts of the flesh which afflict us:

"15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John 2:15-16)

Lusts of the flesh all connect to addictions. That's what they are!

The reason why? The individuals in bondage do not know the love of the Father. The love of the Father is not in them. Why does this happen? We struggle too much in our own efforts. We want to come to Him after we have cleaned ourselves up.

All that stuff is of the world, and it will never last. It will never suffice.

Now, about our sin ... it cannot stop God's love.

God sent His Son, His Only Begotten, to die for us, to rise for us, to live for us and through us.

God the Father sent His Son while we were still sinners!

"8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:8-9)

Our sin cannot stop God's love. If it could, God would have never sent His Son, or worse yet could not have sent His Son!

Consider also the types and shadows in the Old Testament:

"I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated." (Malachi 1:2-3)

Jacob did not deserve God's love at all.

He lied, cheated, deceived, put his own needs ahead of others. He played favorites among his four wives and his twelve sons and daughter.

Yet God loved Jacob.

That's how God loves us! Unconditionally. When we understand how great, how wonderful God's love is for us, then we fall out of love with the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life.

Lean on His love. Ask Daddy God to give you a broader, wider revelation of His love for you! (Ephesians 3:16-19)

Jesus, the Light of the World ... to the WORLD

"And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." (Isaiah  49:6)

Jesus is indeed the Light of the World (John 8:12).

He was announced beforehand as a great Light appearing in a dark world, in a lightly esteemed (read, cursed) place: Galilee of the Gentiles, or the nations:

"Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." (Isaiah 9:1-2)

Jesus did many of His miracles in Galilee, I submit, because most of the people who lived there were Gentiles, non-Jews who were not under law, who could receive God's grace unimpended by their allegiance to Moses.

For even Moses had informed the Israelites:

"The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;" (Deuteronomy 18:15)

And yet many did not believe Him:

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isaiah 53:3)

But the nations of the world received Him, gladly. 

"I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name." (Isaiah 65:1)

God's grace is for the whole world, not just for the Jews, not just for the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Yet this should come as no surprise, for God prophesied this grace for all of us long before Israel was even born:

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:3)

Jesus would later explain to the Pharisee Nicodemus:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

Jesus is the Light of the World, to the World. God's love for Israel is real, but no one should give the impression that because He was first sent to the Jews, to the House of Israel, that all the nations of the world were an afterthought.

It was God's express interest to save all of us, and we have a Savior who is committed to saving us every day!