Yes! God really does love you; He really loves all of you, even in your past, and He also loves you in your future. You may not know your future, but God does, and yes, He does love you in your future. God is who God is, He is much bigger than we think, and He is much better than we think. Let’s look into the Bible for answers on His love for us.
If we look at Psalm 52:8 it says: “But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.” What is an olive tree and why is it
flourishing in the house of God? (Psalm 52:8 in the New Revised Standard Version – Updated Edition. I will use the New Revised Standard Version – Updated Edition within this text. If you would like to look at another text, a different Bible, your text may be different in the text I talk about and this document portrays.)
David, was the youngest of eight sons of Jesse, he was a farmer and sheep herder of the Israelite tribe of Judah. David spent much of his boyhood years tending his family’s flock. One day he was summoned from the fields by the prophet Samuel, who anointed him king of Israel, but this was still while Saul was king. In the biblical narrative of the Books of Samuel, David is described as a young shepherd who gains fame and becomes a hero by killing the giant Goliath. He becomes a favorite of Saul, the first king of Israel, but is then forced to go into hiding when Saul distrusts him because David is trying to take his throne from him.
Here, at the writing of this Psalm, David is the King of Israel and he is writing in the Book of Psalms. David is a good king and cares for all of his people. As David is writing, what is important to him is what God is doing for him and for the people of his nation.
David looks at Israel and thinks of an olive tree, as we may think of people in our community. Here, within the house of God this tree is flourishing, not because it does not have enemies, but it is because God is with them and God is helping him, even if God is behind the scenes. David says I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. David doesn’t think that God will ever stop loving him or, in any way cease to love him less, and so David knows that he trusts in all the things that God will ask him to do. This is a two-way love. Yes, God loves David and David also loves God.
As you read this, David trusted God with everything he was. This is a sacred trust because David doesn’t know the future of his life and the life of his kingdom. But God does know the future of all of us and can see it and, therefore, David trusted God to do all the things to help Israel.
Trust is one of the core issues of faith. It is faith that keeps us moving, even if the life we have is not going so well. Trust is a key component of our faith, because without trust we cannot easily count on other people, and in this case, God is just another person for us. So, we must trust God and even when things are a mess, we still need to trust our God in them.
Let’s now look at a new scripture, scriptures in the Bible, that tell what others thought of God’s love. Here, we see John. John is an Apostle of Jesus. That means that John was there at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and started to work with the others, the other Apostles, to understand what Jesus was doing and why He was doing it. This took some time and as an Apostle; John had a lot to learn. But Jesus knew what John was as a person, and what he could do.
A letter that John wrote is called “1 John”. This is the first letter that John has written. There are three letters that John wrote that were sent to the churches of Asia Minor (Asia Minor is made up of Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, northern Iran, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan). In these letters, John was writing to the churches in Asia Minor and alerting them of the “gnosticism” religion. This religion depicts Jesus as divine, but not fully human, and this was a problem. Jesus was fully human, but He was also fully divine as well. Although this was a problem for some, it is not a problem for those who have faith. Christ is fully human but has a spirit that is fully divine.
In this letter, John is talking about what we, as people, are to do with God. This is not a “love letter”! What John was trying to do, for all of the churches in Asia Minor, is to encourage them to believe in God, and understand how Jesus fits into the picture of how God worked through Jesus to help us. With these two things chained together, John introduces us to why love truly is wonderful for us, and how we should adopt it. Let’s read from 1st John what he says:
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
(1 John 4:7-21)
From this, we can understand what Jesus was trying to teach us and we can understand how we can love others. But, in all these lessons we see here, we can see that God really loves us and that He is always there to hear and help us. Now we may not be able to hear God all the time, but He is there and He sees us in all the things that we do. So, Yes, God loves us, and it is not a plain or fake love, it is a real and honest love that only He can give us.
Now, in this love, there is also doubt. The doubt is not in God’s loving us, it is in our ability to accept that love in us, with us, and for us. It may take some time, but if we love God and understand what He is doing, then we can be fully in love with God. And, if we are fully in love with God, then we can trust God to hear us and understand what we are going through. But God is there, with us, and He can see us, so He knows what we are going through, so what changes in us so that we understand what we have to do? If we understand what God is asking us to do and we are trying to find a way to make it work, then God will bless us as we work.
If we understand what God wants us to do, and why, then we can ask Him for help and expect an answer. But sometimes the answer is “no”, and with a “no” it means that we are going in the wrong direction. God will never say “no” to us if we are moving in the right direction. There can be several directions for us to move in, but God knows where we are to go and what we are to do, so a “no” means that we need to reassess where we are going and what we are doing.
If we do what is right in God’s eyes, then all will be good for us, but if we don’t do what is right in God’s eyes then we don’t know what will happen to us. God always gives us blessings as we do his will.
You need to understand what God’s love means to you, and if you are ready to accept it. It is not easy to accept this love. We can only accept God’s love for ourselves, you will need to understand how to grow in God’s will. The issue with accepting God’s love is by accepting it we have to take a backseat for this love. What does taking a backseat mean? It means that we can no longer drive. It means we have to go to prayer and look for understanding that is in God’s way, and not necessarily our own way. By submission, the act of accepting God’s love, we have to understand that God is the one who’s going to make the decisions for us, and we need to understand what that is and how that will work in our own lives. Without submission, God’s love means nothing to us, and likewise, nothing to Him. But with submission, comes an amazing amount of responsibility for us and asks you how we can work with our God in all things.
To be a child of God is to be the best child on the earth. There is nothing better and with this, you will know so much more. So, be a child of God.