I sometimes struggle to believe that God really loves me. I can be tempted to feel a sense of failure and self-condemnation. It is relatively easy to believe that God loves everybody else, but it is much harder to believe that God loves me.
The love of God, Paul explains in Romans 8, starts with ‘no condemnation’ (v.1) and ends with no separation: nothing ‘will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (v.39). The truth of this passage is a pillow on which to rest our weary heads’.
God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love. This is not to say that salvation is something individualistic, but rather that you are so important that if you were the only person who had ever lived, Jesus would have died for you. And if it is true of you, it is also true of me. God loves me.
The focus of both our worship and our witness is the love of God. Focusing on God’s love: ‘I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever. Think about God’s greatness and glory – how amazing it is to be loved by the ‘Lord God Almighty’. Your love stands firm forever’. The message you pass onto others should always centre on God’s love: ‘I’ll never quit telling the story of your love’
Do your circumstances ever cause you to question God’s love for you? Let's meditate on the amazing love of Christ. Paul suffered greatly – through beatings, imprisonment and many other hardships. (ROMANS 8:18-39). Paul uses the analogy of a pregnancy. You are feeling ‘the pains of labour’
‘Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He enables you to pray in accordance with God’s will.
Life is not the random mess it may sometimes appear. ‘We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. In every detail of your life, God is at work. God will take even your errors and work them out for your good. He reigns. He is sovereign. In everything he works for the good of those who love him. Supremely, the cross demonstrates that just as God took the very worst event in history and turned it into the very best; he can take the worst things in your life and use them for good. It speaks of total security. Your security is solidly grounded on the unwavering love of God. This sure foundation is deeper than all your circumstances and feelings.
How can you be sure of God’s love? With God on your side like this, how can you lose? If God is for us, who can be against us? If God is for you, what others think is not so important. You are set free from the fear of people and from caring too much about what others think of you. If God gave his only Son for you, is he likely to withhold anything else? The answer is No. He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?’ How can anyone drive a wedge between you and Christ’s love? You can be separated from friends and family by circumstances or even death. But, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?’This does not mean that life is easy. There may be trouble, hard times, hatred, hunger, sickness, bullying threats and backstabbing and many more. But none of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. In the midst of every difficulty you can cling to God’s love for you.
Do you realise that God loves you more than any parent loves their own children? Hosea continues to speak of God’s love for his people in spite of their unfaithfulness. They have allowed sins, conflict and idolatry to grow up like ‘poisonous weeds’ and ‘thorns and thistles’. Be careful that these things do not grow up in your life. Keep weeding out the bad stuff – even the little weeds before they become big ones. As well as weeding out the bad stuff, plant beautiful flowers. God calls them (and us) to ‘sow for yourselves righteousness’ and ‘reap the fruit of unfailing love… for it is time to seek the Lord’. He describes it in terms of parental love: ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son… It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms… it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I… bent down to feed them’. This is a wonderful picture of God’s love and tenderness: like a parent looking after a toddler. ‘I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek’. – feeding them, teaching them to walk, taking them up in their arms. Even though they refuse to repent and were determined to turn from him, he cannot give them up. My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. This is the love that will not let you go. Let's enjoy the unfailing love of God. (HOSEA 10:1-11:12)
Let us all "Rest our weary heads on the pillow of God's unfailing love".
Romans 8:28
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’
