I don’t think I need to work very hard to convince you that we, as humans, are very complex creatures. We are not one-dimensional beings; we are multifaceted and deeply intricate by nature and design. We all would agree that this complexity is obvious in our observance of and interactions with other people. But if we are honest, maybe what is more confounding is the complexity that we experience within ourselves. One aspect of this is the discrepancy that is often found between our heads and our hearts. We can know something theoretically but not know it experientially. We can know something to be true without feeling it to be true. I think that our understanding of the things of God, including understanding God’s love for us, is not exempt from this incongruence between what we know and what we feel. But lest we be discouraged at this struggle, take heart from these words of the psalmist, “He knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14 ESV). God knows our fickleness and frailty, yet he counters it with matchless patience and provision to meet us there.
There are many times that we interpret the measure of God’s love for us by our current circumstances, although we can often objectively see the flaw in this approach. Since our circumstances are dynamic and fluctuating, oftentimes so is our perspective on what God’s love is like. If we were given a sheet of paper and asked to write down what we know about God’s love, I would venture to say that most of us would be able to pen a lot of true, right, and biblical things. We would write things like:
- God is love (1 John 4:16).
- Love comes from God (1 John 4:7).
- We cannot be separated from God’s love (Romans 8:35).
- His steadfast love never ceases (Lamentations 3:22).
- God so loved the world that he gave us his Son (John 3:16).
- God showed his love by sending Christ to die (Romans 5:8).
Certainly, we have each been taught and have come to understand God’s love to some degree. While our formal theology may be spot on, it is our functional theology that we really need to take a good hard look at. We may believe all of those things above in theory, but practically we can often fall into believing lies about God, although we don’t typically consciously identify or articulate them.
When we are going through hard things, it can be difficult to maintain a biblical view of God’s love. When we are suffering, we may be tempted to believe that God is cruel. When we have been hurt in relationships, we may be tempted to believe that God is unjust. When we do not receive what we have been diligently asking for, we may be tempted to believe that God is cold and ungenerous. When we experience the consequences of sin, we may be tempted to believe that God is harsh and unforgiving.
With circumstances as volatile as the waves of the sea (and our feelings right along with them), we desperately need the steadying presence of something solid, unchanging, unmoving. And for this need, we look to God’s gracious provision: his Word. His Word is firm, fixed, established, and endures forever (Psalm 119:89; Isaiah 40:8) One biblical truth regarding God’s love that has helped anchor me in this struggle to see God’s love as it is rather than how it feels is this: I am as loved as Christ himself. Maybe you’ve never thought about that before, but it is true. I myself have to reread it a few times just to begin to grasp the implications of what that statement means.
As blood-bought children of God, we are as loved and as accepted by God as Jesus Christ Himself is loved and accepted by God. As we struggle to understand the love that God has for us, I think this is a crucial point of contemplation. How does God the Father love Jesus? How is that love manifested in their relationship? We are recipients of that same love with the same manifestations of that love. Scripture tells us that when we have been redeemed, we are united to Christ in every way (Romans 6:5). When we, by faith, are in Christ, we are beneficiaries of all that is rightfully his. According to Scripture, we are heirs who inherit along with Christ (Romans 8:17). We inherit based upon the merits of Christ, of course, but by faith we are made legitimate sons of God! The New Testament is full of this fact. We are adopted as his children (John 1:12; Ephesians 1:5). On the cross, Christ purchased for us true union with himself, therefore we are united with him in every way (Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1–4). This is the gospel, and this is incredibly good news. We have now been folded into the perfect love and shared unity within the Godhead, and that fact remains true regardless of how we may feel presently about God’s love.
So here is where we really apply that first list of truth to our feelings and begin to allow it to inform how we see our lives. If we feel that God deals with us differently than He deals with Christ, we are not being biblical in our thinking. This is so freeing if we allow ourselves to receive it.
- If God is not harsh with Christ, he is not harsh with us.
- If God is well-pleased with Christ, he is well-pleased with us.
- If God loves and desires communion with Christ, he loves and desires communion with us.
- If God delights in Christ, he delights in us.
And since our standing “in Christ” was something freely given by God the Father and earned by Jesus, then it is continually true for us and is not contingent on anything that we do or don’t do. It is not affected or altered by whatever is happening in our lives. Isn’t that incredible and freeing news? God truly has met every need of ours in Christ, including securing his unchanging love each and every moment of our lives and after.
If this feels too good to be true, remember God’s goodness is beyond anything we can comprehend. But we are told in Ephesians that it is possible for us to grow in our understanding of his love, and he is the one who enables that to happen (Ephesians 3:17–19). It is better than we deserve, but because of his great love for us, it is as true in the moments we feel it as in the moments that we don’t. This is ultimately a fight of faith to believe all that God has told us. If this truth feels elusive and abstract, remember the Bible says that “now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12 ESV)—we are limited in our understanding of infinite things because we are finite creatures.
But to finish the verse, one day our foggy vision will give way to seeing “face to face. Now [we] know in part; then [we] shall know fully.” Our faith will be made sight, and we will fully see and understand all that we strain to catch a glimpse of now. And I can’t help but feel that at that moment we will laugh with relief and say, “So it was true all along!” But until then, we speak truth to our feelings and fight for faith to believe that we are loved with an everlasting love, the very same love that God has for Christ.
Photo credit: Jenna Martin
Jody has been married to her husband, Forest, for sixteen years and they have four precious children. Jody enjoys serving in Women's Ministry in her local church and has a passion to see women grow in their love for God and His Word. In her free time she enjoys reading, writing, and baking.
