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Does God Like You?
It's a really weird feeling, isn't it? To know God loves you, but to feel like he doesn't like you.
John 3:16, Zephaniah 3:17
It’s a really weird feeling, isn’t it? To know God loves you, but to feel like he doesn’t like you. Okay. I see the way you’re looking at me. Like, you’re like I don’t ever feel that way. But let me tell you my story and maybe it’ll resonate.
I realized a few years ago that I know God loves me and he loves me so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay for my sins. So then I can have eternal life with him. But I also know that God knows me and my life and he sees all the ways that I don’t live the way I was meant to live. He sees all the things I do that I shouldn’t do and all the things that I should do and that I don’t. And he knows all this stuff in my head that I would be so embarrassed for other people to know. And he also knows the stuff that I do that looks really good. And everybody’s like, All right, great job, but my heart’s not in it. And so knowing that God knows that about me, I often would feel like God was just super disappointed at me.
Like if I could look at his face that I would see him just kind of shaking his head. And so I actually started feeling like my relationship with Jesus was almost like he was like a ticket taker at like, a sports arena. You know, like, I could come up to the gate and all right, here’s my ticket, so I get to go in, right? So like, okay, I believe in you, Jesus. So I get to go to heaven, right? But there wasn’t really much of a relationship.
Does that resonate? If it does, I want to share with you what I learned. Part of what I learned has to do with the concept of God’s grace. And maybe you’ve heard that God’s grace is his undeserved love. Let’s dig a little deeper into it. If God’s grace is undeserved love, why? Where does it come from? When you look at the word in the original language, it actually describes delight or favor.
When someone is gracious to you, it’s the idea that they delight in you so much that they give you a gift, not because you’ve done anything to earn it. But just because they delight in you, it’s like a parent who gives a gift to their child just because you love them. You throw them a birthday party just because you love them, not because they’ve done anything to earn it. This is what grace is. God’s grace is that he delights in us so much that he loves us. He doesn’t love us because he has to.
Think about one of the most well known verses in scripture, John 3:16.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
He doesn’t love us because Jesus died for us, he loves us and so as a result, Jesus died for us. God loves you because he delights in you. And this is why one of my new favorite verses is Zephaniah 3:17 This is how it goes,
Your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)
I love this verse partly because actually if you read the rest of the book, God’s talking about how much his people have screwed up. Like it’s kind of a challenging book, and then all of a sudden, what did it just say about you? He will take great delight in you. Your God delights in you. And that’s why he sent Jesus to lay down his life, to die for your sins, to rise again. When you look at your God, he’s not shaking his head at you. He actually sees you now through the perfect life of Christ.
So today, lift up your head. Imagine looking at God’s face. And as you do so, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he look upon you with favor and give you peace.
