Loved As Jesus Was Loved

The Holy Spirit stirred my spirit concerning his love and led me to this passage: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ until eternal life” (Jude 20-21).

As I read these verses, I heard the Spirit quietly whisper to me, “David, you’ve never yet come into the fullness and joy of my love. You have the theology right, but you haven’t experienced the ecstasy and rest of keeping yourself in my love. There is a whole ocean of my love for you to swim in.”

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. I don’t doubt his love, I just fail to keep myself in the knowledge and assurance of his love for me.

The love of God must be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit and the revelation 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 would answer, “I know God loves me because he gave his son to die for me.” And they would quote John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Yet the secret to understanding the love of God is the secret to an overcoming life. Multitudes grow spiritually cold and lazy because they’re ignorant of the Lord’s love for them. They don’t understand that their greatest weapon against Satan’s attacks is to be fully convinced of God’s love.

In Jesus’ prayer to the Father in John 17, he prayed this remarkable prayer, “The glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me … that the world may know that You … have loved them as You have loved Me” (17:22-24).