I don’t often watch movies, but when I do, I scroll through Netflix looking for a love story. I hunt for an enchanting tale about a man and woman overcoming odds and expressing their undying love and affection for each other. I’m usually left speechless by the sacrifices made by the hero or heroine to find love and keep that love vibrant and alive. I think we all like a good love story, one that unites unlikely characters to find the greatest love of their lives. Today we’ll uncover the truth of God’s story, one full of love and sacrifice.
The Bible is most certainly a love story—the greatest love story ever told. The Scriptures aren’t just historical and instructional. They’re not purely a morality lesson, chronicling what is bad and what is good. The pages of God’s story reveal to us a loving Father who so desired relationship with His children that He did everything possible to communicate His unconditional love, even sending His Son to express grace, peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, and wholeness to hurting people with broken hearts—all the way to the cross.
God loved us so much that He sent Jesus so we might have a relationship with Him forever. Contrary to what we sometimes think or feel, we don’t have to clean up, stand tall, and be the people we ought to be in order to be worthy of God’s love. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God, because God proved His love for us.
God loved us first, even though we are sinners. God loves us and desires us simply because we exist—because He created us; and this unconditional love is God’s promise to us. It’s not our appearance, relationships, jobs, accomplishments, behaviors, or anything else that make us desirable or lovable; we are lovable simply because God, our Maker and our Healer, loves us. And He will stop at nothing to set us free and make us whole
Excerpted from the six-week Bible study Never Alone: 6 Encounters with Jesus to Heal Your Deepest Hurts, Tiffany Bluhm, Ó 2018 by Abingdon Press. All rights reserved.