Author: Phil Bray, Senior Pastor at MaconFBC | Posted March 20, 2024
God loves me! Does that seem like a foreign concept to you? Maybe that is hard to believe. It is easier to doubt that God loves you than to be confidently assured that you are deeply and joyfully loved by God isn’t it? Why is that? Why do we doubt God’s love? Why are we in such desperate need of assurance?
Could it be that we don’t feel loved because our feelings are all out of whack when it comes to our relationship with God? Have you ever gotten into a fight with your spouse? What is the immediate result? You don’t feel secure. The relationship feels off. Everything is uncomfortable. You know that she is mad at you, but you are not sure how to make it right. Even apologizing and asking for her forgiveness does not always result in an immediate feeling of peace and joy does it? The relationship is wounded and in need of healing. That feeling of being off in a relationship is why many of us feel that God is angry or annoyed with us, more than we feel that God loves us.
Why do we feel this way? Sometimes the cause is sin. When we sin against another person the relationship becomes strained and awkward. We are embarrassed and frustrated by our actions. Encountering the person afterwards is uncomfortable. We don’t know how they will respond. We don’t know if they will be gracious or harsh. We know how we would feel if we were in their shoes, don't we? We know what it is like to be frustrated, annoyed, and even angry with people who have hurt us in the past. Even when we are gracious and forgive, we know that there is a lingering hurt, annoyance, or even anger in our heart that takes some time to evaporate.
We bring all of this experience into our understanding of God’s love. We know we have sinned against God. We know that our sin is against Him chiefly (Ps 51:4). We assume God is angry, annoyed, or frustrated with us. Oftentimes, we assume that God is fed up with us due to our continual failures in the same problem areas of sin. We think this because this is how we feel towards people when they repeatedly offend us in the same way. We begin pulling away, avoiding them, or even cutting them off completely. We may smile and act politely but internally, we are distancing ourselves from them. Because this is how we act, we assume this is how God acts.
We feel off in our relationship with God. This is often the result of succumbing to temptation. We assume that God is annoyed and angry with us. We assume God is distancing Himself from us. What do we do? We strive to placate God in the same way we attempt to placate people we have hurt or sinned against. We buy gifts, perform acts of service, apologize over and over, or even attempt to justify the action by explaining the true intention of our heart so that they know we did not mean to hurt them. The goal of all of these efforts is to secure some nod of acceptance, some smile of reconciliation, some words of forgiveness, so that we can feel safe, secure, and satisfied again.
We again, bring this experience into our relationship with God. We seek to placate God by confessing with more sincerity, praying with more humility, giving with more generosity, reading our Bible with more intensity, or attending church with more regularity. We perform religious rituals in order to acquire a feeling of safety, security, and satisfaction. We want a feeling of assurance that all is well between us and God. The problem is that we are looking to our activity to provide that feeling. Our hope for peace and reconciliation does not rest upon God’s actions but upon ours. As a result, we often spiral into a compulsive, over analytical examination of our motives, our intentions, and our actions. We confess our sins, but do not feel any better so we must not have been humble enough or genuinely sorry. We get down on our knees or even lay completely prostrate on the floor and say the confession again. Still, we feel distant from God. As a result, we start questioning the sincerity of our confession. “Did I really feel bad about my sin or am I just using Jesus as an escape hatch to avoid hell?” Suddenly, our initial feelings of awkwardness are compounded by further feelings of fear and shame due to our supposed hypocrisy.
The problem is that we are looking to our actions and our corresponding feelings as the basis for or evidence of God’s love. We do not believe God loves us, unless we feel like we are loved. That is why we try to perform these religious activities with zealous compulsiveness. We are attempting to secure the feeling of peace with God by our own efforts. It will not work. When you look to your own subjective feelings as the evidence of God’s love, then you will be continually plagued by doubt, fear, and self-loathing.
Where should you look? Jesus! Look at John 3:16! The proof of God’s love is not your feelings. The proof that God loves you is the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus! God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son! God’s love is seen, manifested, and displayed by the arrival of Jesus to die in our place, a substitute for us at the Judgment seat of God. The proof that God loves you is that Jesus died for all of your sins; past, present, and future. Every sin that you would ever commit was paid for in full on the cross. He swallowed up the entire dose of infinite wrath for our sin when He died on the cross. Nothing is left to pay, nothing is still owed because Jesus is not still dead! His resurrection is the receipt that your sins have been paid for in full (1 Cor 15:17). There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1)!
Not only did Jesus completely erase your entire sin debt at the cross, but He also transferred His record of righteousness, His perfection, to your account so that you stand innocent in the sight of God. You are perfect, as you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:27). God accepts you, rewards you, and delights in you because you are perfect! That perfection is not the result of your effort or work. It is the perfection of Christ wrapped around you! You are saved because of Jesus Christ.
God demonstrated his love for us by sending Jesus to die our death (Rom 5:8; 1 John 4:10) and impute to us His perfect righteousness. It is His holiness that enables us to enter into the presence of the Lord (Psalm 15)! God loves you! How do you know? You do not know that God loves you because you feel happy. You know that God loves you because Jesus came! Do you see? God’s love is not fickle and changing like the wind. HIs love is constant and real, even when you cannot feel it! God’s love is concrete and real. His love is ever present and strong. His love is greater than the darkest wickedness of our heart. How do we know? Jesus came! Jesus died! Jesus rose again! Jesus ascended to glory to finish making all things new! Jesus is the display of God’s love! Jesus is the evidence of God’s love! Jesus’ coming is how you know God loves you! He came. That means He loves you with an everlasting, unending, inexhaustible love!
When you fear that God does not love you, do not seek to make yourself feel better. Do not look to your feelings for comfort or assurance. Look at the good news of the gospel! Look to Jesus! Remind yourself that Jesus paid for this sin already! Remind yourself that you are wrapped up permanently in the righteousness of Christ! Ephesians 5:25-27 is so clear, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.” Jesus loved the church by giving Himself up for her. His coming and dying is the very act of love. It is the display and expression of love. He loves us and that is clear, evident, and visible in the cross. Did you notice the next statement? What is the purpose of this giving up of Himself? The purpose is this, “that He might sanctify her.” He gave Himself up on the cross, loving the church, so that He could then make her holy, blameless and beyond reproach. He is doing it! You are not making yourself holy. Jesus is doing it, and that action is flowing continually from the love displayed in the cross!
God loves you! That is a reality that is objectively true. It is not a subjective conjecture. You know you are loved, not because you feel a certain way, but because Jesus actually came, died, rose, and ascended to heaven to complete the work of making you holy, so that he could lavish his love and kindness on you for all eternity (Eph 2:4-7)! When you are tempted to doubt God’s love, remember the cross. God so loved the world that He gave His only son. Your feelings are not proof you are loved. The fact that Jesus came is the proof! Look to Jesus! Be comforted by that reality! Jesus came and died for your sins! God loves you!
Could it be that we don’t feel loved because our feelings are all out of whack when it comes to our relationship with God? Have you ever gotten into a fight with your spouse? What is the immediate result? You don’t feel secure. The relationship feels off. Everything is uncomfortable. You know that she is mad at you, but you are not sure how to make it right. Even apologizing and asking for her forgiveness does not always result in an immediate feeling of peace and joy does it? The relationship is wounded and in need of healing. That feeling of being off in a relationship is why many of us feel that God is angry or annoyed with us, more than we feel that God loves us.
Why do we feel this way? Sometimes the cause is sin. When we sin against another person the relationship becomes strained and awkward. We are embarrassed and frustrated by our actions. Encountering the person afterwards is uncomfortable. We don’t know how they will respond. We don’t know if they will be gracious or harsh. We know how we would feel if we were in their shoes, don't we? We know what it is like to be frustrated, annoyed, and even angry with people who have hurt us in the past. Even when we are gracious and forgive, we know that there is a lingering hurt, annoyance, or even anger in our heart that takes some time to evaporate.
We bring all of this experience into our understanding of God’s love. We know we have sinned against God. We know that our sin is against Him chiefly (Ps 51:4). We assume God is angry, annoyed, or frustrated with us. Oftentimes, we assume that God is fed up with us due to our continual failures in the same problem areas of sin. We think this because this is how we feel towards people when they repeatedly offend us in the same way. We begin pulling away, avoiding them, or even cutting them off completely. We may smile and act politely but internally, we are distancing ourselves from them. Because this is how we act, we assume this is how God acts.
We feel off in our relationship with God. This is often the result of succumbing to temptation. We assume that God is annoyed and angry with us. We assume God is distancing Himself from us. What do we do? We strive to placate God in the same way we attempt to placate people we have hurt or sinned against. We buy gifts, perform acts of service, apologize over and over, or even attempt to justify the action by explaining the true intention of our heart so that they know we did not mean to hurt them. The goal of all of these efforts is to secure some nod of acceptance, some smile of reconciliation, some words of forgiveness, so that we can feel safe, secure, and satisfied again.
We again, bring this experience into our relationship with God. We seek to placate God by confessing with more sincerity, praying with more humility, giving with more generosity, reading our Bible with more intensity, or attending church with more regularity. We perform religious rituals in order to acquire a feeling of safety, security, and satisfaction. We want a feeling of assurance that all is well between us and God. The problem is that we are looking to our activity to provide that feeling. Our hope for peace and reconciliation does not rest upon God’s actions but upon ours. As a result, we often spiral into a compulsive, over analytical examination of our motives, our intentions, and our actions. We confess our sins, but do not feel any better so we must not have been humble enough or genuinely sorry. We get down on our knees or even lay completely prostrate on the floor and say the confession again. Still, we feel distant from God. As a result, we start questioning the sincerity of our confession. “Did I really feel bad about my sin or am I just using Jesus as an escape hatch to avoid hell?” Suddenly, our initial feelings of awkwardness are compounded by further feelings of fear and shame due to our supposed hypocrisy.
The problem is that we are looking to our actions and our corresponding feelings as the basis for or evidence of God’s love. We do not believe God loves us, unless we feel like we are loved. That is why we try to perform these religious activities with zealous compulsiveness. We are attempting to secure the feeling of peace with God by our own efforts. It will not work. When you look to your own subjective feelings as the evidence of God’s love, then you will be continually plagued by doubt, fear, and self-loathing.
Where should you look? Jesus! Look at John 3:16! The proof of God’s love is not your feelings. The proof that God loves you is the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus! God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son! God’s love is seen, manifested, and displayed by the arrival of Jesus to die in our place, a substitute for us at the Judgment seat of God. The proof that God loves you is that Jesus died for all of your sins; past, present, and future. Every sin that you would ever commit was paid for in full on the cross. He swallowed up the entire dose of infinite wrath for our sin when He died on the cross. Nothing is left to pay, nothing is still owed because Jesus is not still dead! His resurrection is the receipt that your sins have been paid for in full (1 Cor 15:17). There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1)!
Not only did Jesus completely erase your entire sin debt at the cross, but He also transferred His record of righteousness, His perfection, to your account so that you stand innocent in the sight of God. You are perfect, as you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:27). God accepts you, rewards you, and delights in you because you are perfect! That perfection is not the result of your effort or work. It is the perfection of Christ wrapped around you! You are saved because of Jesus Christ.
God demonstrated his love for us by sending Jesus to die our death (Rom 5:8; 1 John 4:10) and impute to us His perfect righteousness. It is His holiness that enables us to enter into the presence of the Lord (Psalm 15)! God loves you! How do you know? You do not know that God loves you because you feel happy. You know that God loves you because Jesus came! Do you see? God’s love is not fickle and changing like the wind. HIs love is constant and real, even when you cannot feel it! God’s love is concrete and real. His love is ever present and strong. His love is greater than the darkest wickedness of our heart. How do we know? Jesus came! Jesus died! Jesus rose again! Jesus ascended to glory to finish making all things new! Jesus is the display of God’s love! Jesus is the evidence of God’s love! Jesus’ coming is how you know God loves you! He came. That means He loves you with an everlasting, unending, inexhaustible love!
When you fear that God does not love you, do not seek to make yourself feel better. Do not look to your feelings for comfort or assurance. Look at the good news of the gospel! Look to Jesus! Remind yourself that Jesus paid for this sin already! Remind yourself that you are wrapped up permanently in the righteousness of Christ! Ephesians 5:25-27 is so clear, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.” Jesus loved the church by giving Himself up for her. His coming and dying is the very act of love. It is the display and expression of love. He loves us and that is clear, evident, and visible in the cross. Did you notice the next statement? What is the purpose of this giving up of Himself? The purpose is this, “that He might sanctify her.” He gave Himself up on the cross, loving the church, so that He could then make her holy, blameless and beyond reproach. He is doing it! You are not making yourself holy. Jesus is doing it, and that action is flowing continually from the love displayed in the cross!
God loves you! That is a reality that is objectively true. It is not a subjective conjecture. You know you are loved, not because you feel a certain way, but because Jesus actually came, died, rose, and ascended to heaven to complete the work of making you holy, so that he could lavish his love and kindness on you for all eternity (Eph 2:4-7)! When you are tempted to doubt God’s love, remember the cross. God so loved the world that He gave His only son. Your feelings are not proof you are loved. The fact that Jesus came is the proof! Look to Jesus! Be comforted by that reality! Jesus came and died for your sins! God loves you!