Why does God love me?

(1 Jn 4:16) He is the origin of love, He is love.

Does God even love the person who I hate?

(1 Jn 4:16) He is love,

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

-Romans 5:8 (NIV)

If you are curious, you might be asking, “Is there anything that God hates?”

Yes, rival worship of false gods. Unfaithfulness. He is jealous in that way. If He were not jealous of our unfaithfulness, He would not really seem to love us. What we love has the capacity to hurt us in some way if/when they let us down. Only God is perfect in his love, we (humanity) mess up a lot. Here are some verses about that:

“Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the Lord your God, and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the Lord your God hates.”

-Deuteronomy 16:21-22 (NIV)

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

-Exodus 20:4-6 (NIV)

That sounds pretty harsh doesn’t it? Have you ever been punished for the errors or sins of someone else? What do you think this means?

How does God show me His love?

(1 Jn 4:9)

What is unique about the love God has compared to what I may have experienced?

(1 Jn 4:10) sacrifice, initiating, forgiveness

How should I respond to this love?

(1 Jn 4:7) (1 Jn 4:11)

Read 10 verses in 1 John 4:7-16 (NIV):

[7] Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

[8] Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

[9] This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

[10] This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

[11] Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

[12] No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

[13] We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

[14] And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

[15] If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.

[16] And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

-1 John 4:7-16 (NIV)

(Prayer)

-Ezra