We all want to be loved and accepted, but most people don’t know what true love is all about. They may think they do, based on what’s shown on television and in movies. However, studying our Bible opens our eyes to its full meaning, which encompasses compassion, forgiveness, and sacrifice. Love comes directly from God, and He has deliberately aimed it squarely at us.
The Bible is a long, sincere love letter from God. We learn how He formed us in His own image, gave us dominion over the earth and everything in it, and sent His only Son to save us when we got in trouble. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16, 17, NKJV). God’s own Son hung on a cross and died for us. No one else would go to such an extreme.
Most people just look at the “here and now,” but we’re only here for a few years, and then we’re gone. What we experience now isn’t all there is; we must consider what will happen after we leave this earth. For some people, this is too scary to contemplate, but Jesus’ death and resurrection turn an uncertain future into a promise of eternal life through Him. “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9, 10, NKJV).
Despite our flaws and shortcomings, God has loved us from the beginning. Regardless of what mistakes we make or what kind of trouble we may get into, His feelings for us always remain the same. We’re wonderfully made, according to His specifications and the plans He had for us before the beginning of time. “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you’” (Jeremiah 31:3, NKJV).
God wants us to accept His Son, who is love in earthly form and the exact image of the Father. When we follow what the Word of God says, we’re walking in God’s truth. Doing this opens our eyes to His true nature. “For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth” (Psalm 26:3). God intentionally uses the word “lovingkindness,” defined as tender and benevolent affection, to describe His feelings toward us and the type of personal relationship He wants with us.
God’s love never falters, never vacillates, and never changes; nothing can tear us away from His embrace. It’s always rock solid, and we can depend on it. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that 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 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 37-39). This is the type of love He wants us to experience with Him.