One particular time, I was stirred by the Holy Spirit, and he led me to this passage: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 1:20-21, NKJV). As I read, I heard the Spirit whisper, “Kevin, you’ve never come into the fullness and joy of my love.”
The Bible is filled with the truth of God’s love, but at times I allow myself to wonder how the Lord could ever love me. It’s a failure on my part to keep myself in the knowledge and assurance of his love.
The revelation of God’s love comes in part when we are born again. If you were to ask most Christians what they know about God’s love for them, they’d answer, “I know God gave his Son to die for me.” Few Christians, however, learn how to be kept in God’s love. We know something of our love toward the Lord; but if you were to ask most Christians to find biblical passages on God’s love for us, they could point to only a few.
Multitudes grow spiritually cold and lazy because they’re ignorant of the Lord’s love for them. They don’t know that their greatest weapon against Satan’s attacks is to be fully convinced of God’s love for them, through the revelation of the Holy Ghost.
In his final prayer on earth, Jesus said, “Father, I desire…that they may behold my glory which you have given me; for you loved me before the foundation of the world…. I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:24, 26).
The implication here is that when the Father loved Jesus before eternity, he loved us too. “Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4).
How long has God loved you? He’s loved you since he has existed because God is love. It is his very nature. He loved you as a sinner. He loved you in the womb. He loved you before the world began. There was no beginning to his love for you, and there is no end to it.