God loves me?

I've struggled a lot with believing God loves me. Like, why would He love me? I felt horrible feeling this way and calling myself a Christian. I knew that there is nothing good in me, I am not good, I am sinful, and I can't earn His love. Basic sunday school stuff, right? So why was I struggling with this?

I moped around for a few days wallowing in my self pity of not feeling loved and not believing God would actually love me. I was trying to pray about this, and see the root of where this came from but couldn't understand.

I think my problem was I knew the answer in my head, but not in my heart.

I was listening to the radio and a song by Anthem Lights came on talking about God being love. God directed me to 1st John where it talks about how God is love. I thought of other verses, and heard several other songs that talked about God being love- and I realized how God was speaking to me through this. Sure, I knew that God was love. I've heard that and read it in the bible my whole life.. But for the first time it became real to me. It wasn't just something I've heard several times and knew by heart, it was something I truly believed and understood for the first time so clearly. I realized He doesn't love me because I do or don't do something, He doesn't love me because I deserve it or don't deserve it, He loves me because Gods character IS love. His love is completely and entirely independent of me. Because I am a follower of Christ, because I am covered by Jesus blood, have turned from my sin and turn to Christ, God loves me. He doesn't see my sin, He sees His Sons blood that covers me.

This doesn't mean I didn't grasp the gospel before this, it's just that as a human I think we all still feel that we need to do something to earn God's love. Even believers sometimes think that we screwed up, so we better make up for it. But that's not how it works- God's gift of salvation is entirely free and independent of our works. Good works are a result of salvation, salvation is not a result of good works.

God is love. His character is love. Because He is love He has sent Jesus to be our salvation freely if only we will accept it, repent, and turn to Him.

I'm so thankful for a loving God.