The Love of God
God the Father has shown the depths of his love for us in an unmistakable way: He sent his Son on a rescue mission to save sinners. There is no greater display of the depth and breadth, the manifold magnitude, of God's love than this— the Father gave us what cost him the most. The consistent testimony of the New Testament is that God's love is best revealed, pictured, understood, and believed when we see it displayed in Christ.
"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10).
We did not love God with even a pittance of affection when he put his astounding love for us on display in Christ. As sinners, we were hostile to him. But the Father loves sinners. Therefore, he sent Christ to be the propitiation (the complete satisfaction of God's righteous wrath due to sinners) for our sins.
The Father did not wait to parade this great love until after we cleaned ourselves up. He exhibited his love by sending Christ while we were dead in our sin and trespasses (Eph 2:1-5).
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—" (Eph 2:4-3).
The Father did not reserve this greatest act of love for the righteous but pours it out on sinners through his Son (Rom 5:7-8).
"For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:7-8).
The very appearance of Christ in his humanity is said to be the appearing of "the goodness and loving kindness of God [the Father] our Savior" (Titus 3:4). Christ, the baby, the man, the preacher, the crucified, the risen is the very embodiment of the Father's love. And all of those to whom Christ appeared were sickeningly sinful (just like us).
"For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us" (Titus 3:3-5a).
If you struggle with being assured of the love of God, you only need to look to Christ. If you struggle in knowing if the Father's love is deep enough to cleanse your own mountain of sin, look to Christ. If you are currently struggling with sin and wonder if God could love you, look at what he did to show you that he really does love sinners. He gave sinners his Son.
Martin Luther said that he took great consolation when the devil accused him of being a sinner because Christ came to save sinners. If you are a sinner (and of course you are), then you can take comfort knowing that you are the very kind of person the Father sent Christ to save. Christ did not come for angels. He did not come for the righteous. He did not come to save anyone other than sinners like you whom the Father loves with an inexhaustible love.
You can behold, only in the sending of Christ, an assurance of the greatness of God's love. But you must believe on Christ in all of his glory, in his perfect atonement, in his work alone, not any of yours. If you place your faith in Christ, you will not die forever but live eternally with Christ.
"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).
To quote the apostle Paul, "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ" (2 Thes 3:5). My prayer is that your compass would always be oriented to the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
