God loves you. That’s the message that Franklin Graham has been preaching to 10,000 people in London. According to one involved with the event, a former atheist called Steve Johnson, there is a new openness to spiritual things.
People have become fed up with the unreality of Instagram. “I’ve seen things go from a very cynical, secular mindset and gradually change, especially with this younger generation…”
God loves you. You can know God’s love. You can be changed by God’s love. And you are to tell other people about God’s love, too!
1. You Can Know God’s Love
You can know God’s love because the Bible tells us that God loves us.
The Apostle Paul put it like this in his letter to the Romans:
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8, ESV).
John’s gospel says this,
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).
The Book of Exodus says,
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6, ESV).
You do not need to doubt God’s love. If you are looking at your life and wondering whether God truly loves you, the Bible urges you to instead look at Jesus. Look at the cross. Look how God has demonstrated his love for us by sending his son to die for us.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth with grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.
2. You Can Be Changed by God’s Love
If we put our trust in Jesus and his death for us on the cross, we are changed. We become a new creation. Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV).
To become a Christian is to experience a miracle greater than the creation of the universe! We are a new creation!
We are transformed by his love to experience his love in our hearts through the work of his Holy Spirit. Paul says in his letter to the Romans,
God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5, ESV).
We know God’s love because we have God’s love by his Spirit within us.
We can also know God’s love by becoming a part of the family of God, whose core identifier is mutual love. John’s gospel tells us that Jesus says,
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34, ESV).
The love that we experience in the Christian community of the church is an expression of God’s love for us.
3. You Are to Tell Other People about God’s Love, Too
Having experienced such great love, who cannot tell others about that love too? Paul puts it like this:
Christ’s love compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14, NIV).
Our ministry of presenting the gospel to other people is motivated by the love of God that we have experienced ourselves. To “evangelize” is simply to share the love we have discovered in Jesus.
Do you know God’s love? Have you received God’s love? Have you been transformed by God’s love? Will you tell others about God’s love?
Josh Moody
Senior Pastor, College Church
President, God Centered Life
Register now for The Word Conference on October 16!
For further reading:
What’s Love Got to Do with Christianity?
How Does the Lord Love with an Everlasting Love?
Does God Really Love Everyone?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Milko
Josh Moody (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) is the Senior Pastor of College Church in Wheaton and the President of God Centered Life Ministries. He is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Joy of Jesus: 25 Devotional Readings for Christmas (Christian Focus 2024); Authentic Spirituality (CLC Publications 2022); and Everyday Holiness: Becoming Who You Were Made to Be (Christian Focus 2022).