Gospel-Centered Love

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

Psalm 63:3

Isn’t it easy at times to doubt that God actually loves you? Maybe you doubt because it seems too good to be true or maybe you’re like me and doubt because you are proud and don’t think God could ever love a sinner like He claims to love you. Most of my doubts center around a belief that I am too bad and God can’t possibly be for me.

The aim of this writing is to provide Scripture to defeat the lies that we far too often believe and move us back under the shadow of God’s wings where we find safety, affirmation, and the love we so desperately desire. Just as most of these Scripture will focus on the Gospel, so must our thoughts be Gospel-centered if we are to slay these doubts and know the love of God more deeply.

I won’t do much writing of my own from this point on because God says it better.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures…

1 Corinthians 15:3

By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us…

1 John 3:16

There is no greater confirmation of God’s love for us than the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

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—

Ephesians 2:4-5

This passage is great for me because I see that even when I was dead in my trespasses, God loved me. I don’t have to worry that God might change His mind because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He loved me then; He loves me now; He will love me for eternity.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy…

Titus 3:4-5

Now let’s take a look at a couple verses that take God’s love a step further. He didn’t just save us. His love gives us so much more!

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2:9-10

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

1 John 3:1

God calls us His children. He has adopted us. What love! We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. He loves us. Incredible!

But it is still easy to doubt, isn’t it? Do you ever feel like God is mad at you? Do you feel like He’s punishing you sometimes? I do. I have to continually go back to these truths and remind myself of what God says no matter how I may be feeling at the time. We can be confident that God means all trials to sanctify us (1 Thessalonians 4:3) and that He will discipline those whom He loves in order to grow us in obedience. But God will not punish us. He sees Christ when He looks at us. We have received mercy. We are His people.

That we could all live with the confidence that the Apostle Paul writes with here in Romans 8:38-39:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing. That’s what God says. He who promised is faithful. Remember what John says. Perfect love casts out fear and anyone who fears has not been perfected in love (1 John 4:18). We must continue to go back to the Cross to see God’s love displayed…and believe.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

Jesus Christ died to set us free from bondage. He has freed us from the need to worry or doubt God’s love for us. He has freed us so that we can rest in His love. He has freed us so that we can draw near to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace in our time of need. And He gives us the grace to stand firm until glory.