Rooting Our Identity In Christ: Loved

As much as we long to be understood like we talked about in the last article, sometimes the idea of being fully known and fully understood can scare us. When the whispers and lies of the evil one start creeping in, the doubts, fears, and insecurities frequently come along with it: “If they know me, really know and start to understand me, will they like me? Will they still love me if they really know and understand me?”

While people are far from perfect and sometimes we may encounter people who don’t love us, we don’t have to look far in the Bible to see that we are loved. Extravagantly, overwhelmingly, loved. Depending on what translation of the Bible you are reading, you’ll find the word “love” anywhere from 300 to over 600 times and many of these are speaking of God’s love for us.

For many of us, from a young age we heard, sang, and probably even believed these words:

“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones, to Him belong; they are weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.”

Words we sang with confidence as young children, we began doubting and having insecurities cloud the joy, trust, and boldness that we had in them and in the love Jesus has for us. It reminds me of John 10:10 where Jesus says:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

It honestly makes me kind of mad when I think about it. How many of us had this sweet confidence and trust that Jesus loved us and we knew it was true because the Bible told us it was true. Then over the years the world around us and the schemes of the evil one made us question that at times. It didn’t happen overnight. We might have recognized it if it happened suddenly, but it was this slow erosion of our confidence in God’s love for us. The evil one slowly began stealing our confidence in God’s love, maybe even killing our joy and boldness, and possibly even destroying our belief in the process. How dare he take something so precious from us!

It’s not too late though. We can reclaim it. When Jesus defeated sin and death, he set the captives free and allows us to return to the freedom and joy that was stolen from us.

We can start by remembering the trust we had in God’s Word. We accepted God’s love for us because the Bible told us so. We trusted that the Bible was God’s Word and that it was true. There are many verses that remind us of the truth of God’s Word. John 8:31-32 is one example:

“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

And when the doubts still want to creep in, John 14:6 gives us this important reminder:

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Jesus is truth. His word gives us the truth. We can trust what He tells us. We can confidently proclaim the truth of God’s love for us because “the Bible tells us so” and we know God’s Word is true.

So when those insecurities or shame or doubt are being whispered, or shouted, in our heads, we can remember the truth. Sometimes those doubts and insecurities try to tell us that we aren’t good enough for God to love us, or that we’ve done something He can’t forgive, or maybe we just question if it’s really true because it sounds too good to be true. It is true though. It’s too good to be true, but because God is True it is true, and we don’t have to be perfect or even better or more for it to be true. God loves us!

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)

Did you catch all that? We were helpless. There is nothing we need to or can do to earn His love. He died for the ungodly. We don’t need to clean up our act and be more godly for Him to give us this gift of love because He already did. God demonstrates His love. Check that word out. He didn’t say that He demonstrated His love like He did it once and it was over. Jesus died for us once and paid the price for our sin, but God uses that action to demonstrate His love for us each and every day, each and every moment. He loves us so much that He continually demonstrates His love for us. Christ died for us, and God began demonstrating His love to us while we were still sinners. He already loved us when we were messed up, messing up, and just a big mess.

He loves us. Full stop. There is no if or but or when involved. He loves us and we can root our identity in the fact that we are loved by God because we know that God, and His Word, are true.