You Are Loved Because You Are Loved

The primary purpose of all things is love. At the core of God’s heart is love, and at the center of everything we were created for is the experience of being loved by Him and learning to live from that love.

Nothing surpasses love, yet so much in life, especially religion, tries to replace it.

Religion often tries to put boundaries around love. It packages love with stipulations. You are loved if you perform well enough. You are loved if you obey enough. You are loved if you believe correctly enough. You are loved if you finally become the version of yourself you think God can delight in.

But the gospel announces something far better.

You are loved because you are loved.

Some of you have spent your whole life trying to become lovable. Trying to pray enough, obey enough, produce enough, heal enough, lead enough, or overcome enough to finally feel worthy of rest in God’s presence.

Yet all along, the Father has not been waiting for a better version of you. He has simply been waiting for you to come near.

The love of God is indescribable and unimaginable. It cannot be fully understood through a sermon, a podcast, a Bible study, or even long hours of prayer. Paul describes this love as something that surpasses knowledge. In other words, it is not merely something to understand with the mind. It is something to experience in the depths of the soul by the Holy Spirit.

The love of God is not cold theology.

It is the exhale your soul has been searching for.

It is rest for the exhausted heart.

It is warmth for the places in you still hiding in shame.

I have good news for you today.

You are loved because you are loved, because you are loved, because you are loved.

The enemy will do everything he can to make you believe God’s love is still attached to your performance. He will whisper that you are loved because of what you do, what you obey, what you believe, or how well you are doing spiritually.

But that is not the truth.

You are loved by God because you were created by God. You are loved by God because God is love, and He cannot deny Himself. He cannot love you less today than He did yesterday. He will not love you less tomorrow than He does right now.

He has one posture toward you.

Love.

The question is not whether or not you are loved. The question is whether or not you are receiving the love He is already lavishing upon you.

Are you striving to earn what can only be received in surrender?

Are you distancing yourself from what can only be experienced when you come near?

Are you exhausting yourself doing many things to feel valuable, while missing the love right in front of you that already makes you valuable?

Love received produces transformation naturally.

Love earned produces exhaustion.

One creates intimacy. The other creates performance.

One awakens sons and daughters. The other creates slaves trying to survive spiritually.

Nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God. Not your failure. Not your weakness. Not your inconsistency. Not your fear. Not even your inability to fully understand His love.

I want to say it again.

You are loved because you are loved, because you are loved, because you are loved.

And when you begin slipping back into striving, remember again: you are loved because you are loved.

You are not loved to a point. You are loved beyond your wildest imagination.

On His final night with His disciples, Jesus said, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love.”

This is staggering. Jesus did not say He loved us with a lesser love. He said the same love the Father has for Him is the love He has given to us.

Life and death truly hinge on this: will we abide in love, or will we spend our lives striving to earn what has already been freely given?

The invitation today is simple.

Abide in love.

Be free in love.

Be overwhelmed by love.

Be changed by love.

Be transformed by love.

Receive love.

Surrender to love.

The ministry God has for every one of us begins here. Receive, surrender, and bask in the love of God.

People who know they are deeply loved stop needing to use others to prove their value. They become free to actually love.

When we begin to embrace this simple invitation, life becomes more free and fruitful than we ever imagined possible.

Maybe the deepest transformation of your life will not come from trying harder to be loved by God, but from finally surrendering to the reality that you already are.

You can stop running now.

Love has already found you.