God Loves You

Opening questions: Who is someone who loves you or that you love? How do you know that they love you?

The definition of love is “an intense feeling or deep affection.” We use the word when we say “I love my mom” or “I love my car” or “I love this food.”

Today, I want us to look at a few things about the Bible that talk about God’s love and how He has expressed His love toward us.

The Bible’s perhaps most famous verse is John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The verse is made up of two parts:

1) God loves the world.

The Bible is full of verses that talk about God’s love toward people.

Deuteronomy 7:9: Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.

Psalm 86:15: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Psalm 119:64:  “The earth is filled with your love, O Lord…”

What do these verses tell us about God and His love? What other qualities are associated with the love of God?

What might cause us to doubt that God loves us?

How can we recognize when someone/something loves us?

The common denominator in our answers is that love is demonstrated by actions. We know/realize when someone loves us better by the actions, the things they do rather than the words or the feelings that they say they have. Words are good, but actions prove and demonstrate the love.

So now we move to the second part of the verse.

2)        God has shown His love to us through actions

So how does God show His love for us based on John 3:16 and other verses?

God has shown His love toward us by giving Jesus, His only son, on the cross for us. The rest of John 3:16 says that: “...gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

James 1:17: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

What does this verse tell us where good things come? What are some of these good things God provides?

What does it mean that “God does not change”?

What happens with people’s love in the world?

How hard is it to give away something you love? In what situation would you actually do that?

Romans 5:6-9 tells us: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

As we will see in other lessons, God wants us to have a loving relationship with Him. He demonstrates this by not only sending His Son to die for our sins, but doing so when we were weak, sinful and deserving of wrath. 

What is our reaction when we are loved?

When we are loved, our usual reaction is to love back – example of a puppy or someone who does something really good for us. Our heart and mind wants to reciprocate this love that they have shown toward us.

The same is true with God. When He expressed this immense love toward us—even when we were sinners and His enemies—our reaction could/should be to love back, to enjoy all these blessings that come because of God.  Let’s choose to love God back.  Let’s choose to show His love to others.

1 John 4:8 says that “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

When God created us in His image, He placed the feeling of love in us—to love and to be loved and to show the love we have for others.  The entire passage in this chapter describes how this love of God works and how it is manifested in our lives. Read it all if there is time.

Conclusion: God Loves You, and He has shown His immense love through His clear actions.