The Assurance of God’s Love

 

By Andrea Merrell

For here is the way God loved the world—He gave His only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in Him will never perish but experience everlasting life.

 John 3:15 TPT

For anyone who has ever struggled believing God’s amazing love for themselves, I’d like to share something I read recently. It’s the story of author Brennan Manning and how he got his name.

It seems Brennen grew up with his best friend, Ray. They were buddies and did absolutely everything together, including joining the Army and fighting on the front lines. This is the rest of the story, according to The Word for You Today:

One night, sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while his friend Ray listened and ate a chocolate bar. Suddenly, a grenade landed in the foxhole. Ray smiled at Brennan, dropped his chocolate, and threw himself on the grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan’s life was spared. Later, Brennan was ordained as a priest, and at that time it was customary to take the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan, and chose the name Brennan. Years later, he visited his friend’s mother in Brooklyn. They were sitting up late one night drinking tea when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in his face, and shouted, “What more could he have done for you?” Brennan says that right there he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, “Does God really love me?” and Jesus’ mother pointing to her Son, saying, “What more could He have done for you?”

Jesus paid the ultimate price and offered Himself as the greatest sacrifice to show His love for all mankind and to pay a debt we could never pay. My pastor says that God didn’t send Jesus so He could love us; He sent Jesus because He already loved us.

There’s nothing we could do to make Him love us more and nothing we could do to make Him love us less.

Don’t ever doubt God’s love for you, my friend. It's more real and lasting than anything you could ever imagine.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and Kelly Sikkema.