Why Does God Love Us?
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:50 pm (Teaching)
Have you ever pondered this question? “Why does God love me?” Or to put it another way, “What is it about me that caused God to love me?”. To put it succinctly, the answer to the latter question is ‘nothing’. We will see that the answer to this second question can lead us to a proper understanding of the first.
In reference to why I would respond ‘nothing’ to that important question, let’s look at a couple of Bible verses. Notice that in Romans 3
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
Paul declares that we are all vile sinners and yet God justifies us (declares us righteous in His sight) as a gift (in the Greek ‘dorean’, also translated: freely, without a cause) by His grace. The same Greek word is used in the following verse
John 15:24-25 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
Let me ask you a question, “What was in Jesus that would cause man to hate Him?” The answer: nothing, absolutely nothing. In the same way that there was nothing in Jesus to cause man to hate Him, there was nothing in us that caused God to love us. Men hated Christ because of something within their depraved soul. In the same way, God loved us because of something within His glorious being.
In other words, the answer to the first question is: God loves us because GOD IS LOVE (see 1 John 4:8-10). He loves us in spite of us being unlovable. The beauty of God’s love is that He loves the unlovable. He loves us because of his character, not because of ours. Praise the Lord! Because therein is security. If God’s love for me depended on my character or anything within me, it might ebb and flow. But because God is love and God is immutable, He changes not. His love for us is never ending (see Romans 8:37-39).
Deuteronomy 7 also gives us some insight into why God chooses or loves His own.
Deut 7:6-10 “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.
So why did “God set His love on you or choose you”? The answer from Scripture is “because the Lord loved you”! Why does God love us? Because God loves us! Man is constantly looking for something within himself to make himself approved to God. To think that God would love us immediately (in our self-centered hearts) conjures up in our mind that there must be something of value in man to cause that love.
But let’s praise the Lord and rejoice (boast) in His love for us. God is love and He chooses to set His love upon us, unworthy, despicable ones because of His grace, because He loves us. Praise God that we can rest in His love. May that motivate us to love Him ever more. Brethren, let me echo the exhortation of 1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
P.S. I hope you all have enjoyed and been edified by all the psychobabble related posts below. I’m finished with that topic for now. I look forward to a bit more variety in the next few weeks. Perhaps more ‘daily life’ type of content. May the Lord bless you all!
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shamshadsamual said,
October 6, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Dear ,
God bless you . ihope you are well. if you want biblical translation work. i do this work .in three languesges urdu,punjabi and saraiki.i hope you will send me work soon. thanks.
in jesus
shamshad