Perhaps you are thinking something like this: Kay, I just don’t get it. If God is love and He loves me, then why don’t I see or feel that love? Honestly, given the agony I’m in, it feels more like God doesn’t even like me.
Nevertheless, whether we feel God’s love or not, it is one of the greatest realities of our existence. Listen to Romans 5:
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (vv. 6-10)
Read it again and see how we are described: “helpless” (v.6), “sinners” (v. 8), “enemies” (v. 10). And this is when God demonstrated His love for us. We were headed for wrath, and Jesus Christ died for us. He justified us, paying the penalty for our sins so we could be forgiven and declared right with God. God reconciled us to Himself when we were His enemies and helpless sinners. It wasn’t after we got cleaned up, got our lives together, and made ourselves acceptable. No, it was when we were in rebellion – as when I shook my fist in the face of God and said, “To hell with You, God.” And that’s exactly what Jesus did. He died and took my “hell,” my punishment, so that I could have His life!
We who were dead because of our sins, our rebellion against the truth of God’s Word, can move from death to life by believing in and receiving Jesus. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).
Have you ever seen advertisements around ball fields or on signs or bumper stickers that say “John 3:16”? If anyone would notice such a sign and actually go to a Bible to look up that reference, he would read: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
This is love: that God would actually allow His own Son to be sacrificed – put to death – in your place. God had Jesus pay for your sins (your unbelief and rebellion against His commandments) so that you would not perish (go to hell and live forever in eternal pain in the lake of fire). He did this so He could offer you eternal life, a forever home in heaven with Him and with His Son whom He raised from the dead.
Have you got? Do you understand? Do you believe it? If so, you’re on your way to handling the hurt that runs so deep.
Kay Arthur appears this Monday and Tuesday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from When the Hurt Runs Deep: Healing and Hope for Life’s Desperate Moments by Kay Arthur. Copyright ©2010 by Kay Arthur. Used by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
