How to Know God Loves You

You are here

How to Know God Loves You

Login or Create an Account

With a UCG.org account you will be able to save items to read and study later!

Sign In | Sign Up

×
Downloads
MP3 Audio (3.23 MB)

Downloads

How to Know God Loves You

MP3 Audio (3.23 MB)
×

The other day I was reading one of my favorite sections of the Bible: John 14-17. During Jesus Christ’s last few hours spent with His closest disciples prior to His death, He provides them (and us) with some extremely encouraging messages describing how each of us can enjoy a deep relationship with Him and His Father.

As I was reading John 15:10, I saw the scripture in a new light. The verse reads, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Most of us don’t use the word “abide” too often. In English, as in the original Greek, it has the meaning of remaining or staying with something. 

In the past, I’ve read that verse as if Christ is telling His disciples (and us since we were also on His mind that night—John 17:20) something almost punitive. I had seen the statement as something like, “If you don’t do what I say, I won’t love you anymore.” As if God will withhold His love from us if we decide to thumb our noses at His instructions. 

But that is not who God and His Son show themselves to be like throughout the Bible. Even when disciplining figures in biblical history (as He may do when correcting us after our mistakes), God never stops loving. He is not stingy with His love for us. Love is what He is at His core and saturates everything about Him (1 John 4:7-8). If God is omnipotent and omniscient (Daniel 4:35; Isaiah 40:28; Isaiah 43:13; Jeremiah 32:27; Psalm 147:5), then so is His love. 

It struck me that Christ is once again emphasizing that His and God’s commandments point us to His love. Abiding, remaining, being saturated in God’s love is what He intends for each of us. As we follow Him and do what He tells us, since He is our Creator and knows what is best for us, we act and think and behave in a way where we fully experience God’s love as He intends each of us to experience. And in being obedient to Him, we reflect His love toward others and back to Him. We are able to understand God’s love in its fullest extent. His instructions are His expression of love toward us because they help us grow in all of our relationships and live our best lives.

If you are feeling out of sync with God or with others, study God’s commandments. A few years ago, I read through the Bible with the intent of copying down every Scripture where there is an imperative, a command, in the wording. I called it my playbook because I felt like it helped me focus in on some of the more direct lessons God intends to convey to us. If you sit down and study and meditate on God’s commandments, you come to see that He gives us the boundaries that protect us and those around us. To obey God is to feel His love for us to the fullest extent. May you abide in God’s love. 

You might also be interested in...

Many religious people embrace the idea of loving others as themselves but...

Comments

  • suewilliams

    More and more I see that God is love. What he does to the wicked is really an act of love. If you can not learn the way to be happy (sin brings unhappiness) then eternal life would be a punishment. So now when I read in the Bible that God is punishing someone, I see more that it is correction. An act of love to someone that has made a bad decision and is going the wrong way.

  • mgmurphy1963

    Thanks for this uplifting and encouraging article. Obedience to GOD's commandments is also the best proof of our love for Him and Jesus Christ. JOHN 14:15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments."

  • J G

    Debbie wrote: "...In the past, I’ve read that verse [[John 15:10]] as if Christ is telling His disciples...something almost punitive...as something like, “If you don’t do what I say, I won’t love you anymore.” As if God will withhold His love from us if we decide to thumb our noses at His instructions..."
    Yes, Debbie, the Bible backs up your seeing John 15:10 "in a new light."
    The God, our Father, has always been, is, and always will be love: unconditional love for humanity.
    An OT example shows us that the Israelites once, via Moses, sealed a covenant with God, and subsequently immediately broke it. Then the second time, God sealed an everlasting covenant with Israel, but He also gave them the blessings and cursings as well.
    God had unconditional love for those Israelites, created by a miracle of God via Abraham/Sarah thru Isaac, etc. It did not matter to God whether Israel obeyed or not: God keeps His Covenant, but blessings/cursings would be a part of the process.
    God's unconditional love is so great He sent His Son into this world not to condemn it!
    "To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them..." 2 Cor 5:19

  • Join the conversation!

    Log in or register to post comments