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"Belief in God doesn't automatically result in the belief- the genuine heart conviction- that God loves us."

A thought by Craig Groeschel, from his book, The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist (p. 60). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

But doesn’t the Bible say that God so loved the world?  Yes, but for so many, they don’t believe that means them.

Craig says, “Oddly, our disbelief doesn’t necessarily question whether God can or does love people. We… can easily believe that God loves other people; we just can’t comprehend how or why he’d love us. We hide our real selves from other people to ensure they won’t reject us. How much more we hide from God! There’s just no way God could love someone as undeserving and evil as I am.”

Ok, ok, I know that may be how you feel but here is a fact.  Craig says, “Love is not something God does. It is who God is. And because of who he is, God loves you. Period.”

He goes on, “According to 1 John 4: 8, God is love. That means God doesn’t pick and choose whom he loves— he can’t! God is love, and we are loved, every single one of us six billion sinful, undeserving people.

“That truth changes everything. How strange. How contrary to expectation, to all we’ve grown up believing about ourselves and our God. And it gets even stranger: God loved us first. Before we were even aware of God’s existence, God already loved us. Romans 5: 8 captures this aggressive love: ‘God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ Think of Psalm 139, where we learn that God loved us in our mothers’ wombs. Think of the Prodigal Son, slogging home in shame, only to look up and see his father already running toward him in love (Luke 15: 20).”

Craig then says, “In short, there’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love. We are already and always loved simply because God made us and he loves each and every one of his creations. There’s nothing we can do to get God to love us more, and there’s nothing we can do to cause God to love us less.”

He goes on, “Dare to claim the truth of John 3: 16 for yourself: ‘For God so loved [insert your name] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ Why would God love you? Because that’s who God is: he’s love. And that makes you who you are: beloved."

Believing that you are beloved is a great thing to believe, isn’t it?
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