To Encourage You

John 13:34 “. . . I have loved you. . .”

Do you remember a time when someone told you that “so and so likes you” although you had had no idea?  Maybe it was in grade school when you found out someone in your class had a crush on you. Maybe it was later in life, perhaps sometime in your high school or college years. And maybe today “so and so” is your spouse. Do you recall how it felt to find out something like that? Suddenly things changed between you and that other person. All of a sudden you noticed them when up until that time you may have paid no special attention to them at all. One thing you probably didn’t do, even if you had no particular attraction to that person, is to just let the message of their affection pass in one ear and out the other.

We like to be liked, and we love to be loved. Sudden knowledge of personal love directed our way has an effect on us. It changes things. That’s just the way it is. So, what do we do with such knowledge? We can ignore it the best we can (though we might still think about it), we can reject it, or we can accept it, perhaps a little tentatively at first, until we know more or until we figure out how best to react.

Perhaps you are one of those people who never knew that God loves you. Maybe you’ve been unaware of it. Perhaps you’ve just never known that He loved you from before you were even born. But if you just read the words above from John 13, now you do know. He’s given you life, and He’s provided you with everything you’ve needed since that time. He’s watched you and listened to you. He knows everything about you, and He really has loved you more, rather, much, much more, than any other person in your life.

So, what will you do with that knowledge? Will you ignore it? Will you reject it? Or will you embrace it, however tentatively at first. You see, the love of God is a very tender and precious thing. It can be reacted to in much the same way as we react to the knowledge that a person loves us, a person of whom we were previously unaware. You see, anyone that comes to love God and Christ Jesus His Son, has only ever come to that love as a reaction to the knowledge that God loved them first (1 John 4:19). And it is the depth of that love that is so stunning. His love for us happened while we were yet “sinners,” i.e., people who were either unaware of it or, if aware, still rejected that love. His love was so great that He gave His life for us. He has told us this wonderful reality with these words: “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:7-8).” So now that you know, what will you do with that knowledge?  Will you Ignore, reject, or embrace?  Each one of us must choose, for everything changes when we suddenly, but certainly, are made aware of such great love.