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There’s an old song that says, “I am loved, I am loved, I can risk loving you, for the one who knows me best, loves me most.” And the truth is, when we are confident in God’s love for us, when we know that we are the one Jesus loves, we can risk loving others.
If you don’t have that sure knowledge, if it hasn’t made a difference in your life to know that Jesus loves you, then it could be because you don’t yet really have an established relationship with God through Jesus. You haven’t yet become a member of God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ. That, of course, is step one.
Or it could be that you are a sincere Christ-follower, but you haven’t gotten to know God very well. You haven’t made getting to know God a high priority in your life, and so you don’t spend much time in Bible study or fellowship with other believers or giving of yourself to others for Christ’s sake.
You see, the more you know God through Jesus, the more you love him and the more you understand his love for you. The more you value the knowledge that you are the one Jesus loves.
You can never short-change the input of God’s Word into your life and expect to be firmly grounded in who you are in Christ. But if you will make that a priority, to get to know Jesus better and better through his word and fellowship and Bible teaching, and if you will begin to tell yourself daily that you are the one Jesus loves, I promise you’re going to move in a new direction with God.
I know—we can talk about your baggage, we can talk about your circumstances and your past, we can talk about all the mistakes you’ve made and the things that are missing in your life; we can bring up all the wrong that’s been done to you. But what good does it do to focus on that? Instead, to begin to truly see yourself as the one Jesus loves is the best thing you can do to find healing and put all that behind you. I invite you—I urge you—to find your identity in the marvelous truth that you are the one Jesus loves.