To Encourage You

John 11:5 “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

Perhaps the best-known Sunday School song of any child is “Jesus Love Me.”  It’s a wonderful and simple truth, so, it’s no wonder that this song is so well known.  That same theme has found its way into many other songs as well.  Hymns such as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” “The Love of God,” and “Jesus Loves Even Me,” come to mind. What a wonderful truth it is that God loves me.  But can we get stuck on this point sometimes, i.e., the point that God loves me?  In the verse above from the gospel of John it strikes me how it says that Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus. 

How often do we think in the context of such a verse? How often, as I think about the wonderful truth that Jesus loves me, do I forget that He loves my wife just as well? And He loves each of my children, every one of my neighbors, every one of my friends, and every one of my other relatives?  Do we ever consider that Jesus even loves every one of our enemies?  If this reality were to truly dawn on our hearts, how would it affect our thoughts and behavior toward others? 

For one, it is an incredible comfort that God loves those in our lives that have yet to put their trust in Him. Perhaps you have a wayward child, or a parent, sibling, aunt, our uncle who you’ve been praying for.  Maybe you have a loved one that is suffering some serious illness. Have you ever gone to the Lord as Martha did to Jesus about her sick brother Lazarus with words similar to those she used, i.e., “Lord, he whom YOU love is ill”? 

What a comfort to know that those whom we love most dearly are loved by our Lord more deeply that we can know or even imagine.  Then the sobering thought that when we speak or act toward others around us, we are speaking and acting towards people that God loves just as much as He does you and me.  That realization should affect us.  It should give us a revolutionary perspective on every relationship we have. 

Yes, aren’t you glad that Jesus loves you. But do you also realize that that love doesn’t stop with you? Aren’t you glad that the God Who loved His Son with an infinite love nevertheless gave that Son to us, for it was in this way that God so loved the world?