His love

I was listening early this morning to the Dwell Daily devotional and the lady declared, God loves you. I thought to myself, I know that. Yet, here’s the thing for me, when I have a night of restlessness, my thoughts get jumbled and chaotic. Clearing through the cobwebs and bleariness, hey, God loves you. So, I have decided while I’m sitting here in a surgery center waiting for my son, I am going through Scripture looking for this truth.

Do you know what story is repeated over and over in the Old Testament? God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh in Egypt. Check it out.

• Deuteronomy 4:37 “And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power…”
• Deuteronomy 9:29 “For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”
• Psalm 78 The whole thing. Seriously.

Deuteronomy 16-18 Example after example of how his people who stray from him. It was never a “if you do this..” but it is a “when you do this..”That is a love that we cannot even imagine or truly ever understand. Think this with me, can you imagine being in a relationship knowing the whole time that your person will turn their back on you? Stop talking. Doing all sorts of sinful ick and then come back over and over again AND you take them back every time in love. God did. Were there consequences with their decisions? Yep. And we still deal with our own sinful choices? Yes, but He is still here and he is with you in the repercussions.

I could go on. Let’s look at Psalms for mentions of God’s love.

• Psalm 42:8 “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”
• Psalm 47:4 “He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves.”
• Psalm 63:3 “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips praise you.”
• Psalm 103:13 “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.”

I could go on and on in the Psalms. How about the promise of God’s son? Here’s the beautiful things about the Old Testament, it all points to our absolute need for a Savior. Every sacrifice, every drop of blood, every animal was never enough. Our sin was as black as it could be.

Galatians 2:15-16 ” We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

So the word, justified, let’s define it. : “the action of declaring or making righteous in the sight of God.” Oxford Languages So, this is not something we could ever do on our own. We can’t earn this. This is because of the blood of Jesus and our accepting this free, but costly gift. It would be weird to be given a dear gift but never open it. I can’t get over it. The Israelites were the first to turn our backs on God, but they most certainly are not the final. Not by a long shot.

I’ve heard the definition of justification as “just as we haven’t sinned,” but that can’t be accurate. Christ’s whole purpose in coming to earth, living, dying and resurrecting was to cleanse our sins. The blood of Jesus bears forever the marks of the cross and beatings. Oh, no, we have sinned. We have turned our backs. And Jesus still offers his nail scarred hand.

Revelation 1:5-7 “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”

Revelation 5:6-8 ” And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”

Jesus bears the marks. His love. God’s love for us radically displayed. The offer of his son given for us.

This is where I will end today. May you remember today, God loves you. No really, God loves you. Truth. Set your mind on the truth today.