Day 2

God Loved Us First!

21 Day W.O.R.D. Challenge

[content_box_red width=”75%”]WOW Word for the Day: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.   –John 3:16[/content_box_red]

Before we knew we needed a savior God loved us. Until we accept his love, the cycle is incomplete. We are able to love Him only because He first loved us. A simple principle of life is: we cannot give what we do not have. Therefore, we are able to love Him only because He first loved us. Let us count the ways our God has loved us:

  • We are known. Remember, I am setting a premise that God knew us before we are born.6 Again, my family’s pastor, Mike Hayes says, “Our parents did not make us they were just the vessels that God used to bring us into this world. Your creator is God.” •We are accepted. God accepted us. He has loved and approved us. We are suitable and pleasant in His eyes.7 We are God’s Beloved, even the apple of His eye. Therefore, we are free to accept others.8
  • We are valued. The value of anything is decided by how much someone pays for it. With this determination in mind, God determined our worth. God valued us so much that he gave his only Son to die so we could live with Him, forever. The cross reveals our true worth. The Father God showed his love for us through the cross of Jesus Christ. But God proves his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.9
  • We are chosen. Our God enjoys choosing ordinary and imperfect people.10 Remember the genealogy of Christ written in the first chapter of Matthew. Consider Tamar that started out as a manipulator, Bath Sheba as an adulteress, Ruth—a foreigner and idolater, Rahab—a prostitute, Mary the mother of Jesus an ordinary teenaged Jewish young woman.
  • We belong. “Jesus didn’t just die so we could believe, he died so we could belong,” says Pastor Hayes. We are God’s people. We belong to the household of faith. The writer of Ephesians wrote, “Therefore you are no longer outsiders—exiles, migrants and aliens, excluded from the rights of citizens; but you now share citizenship with the saints—God’s own people, consecrated and set apart for Himself; and you belong to God’s own household.”11
  • We are loved. Notice in John 3:16 below it did not say God so loved the Christians and those that accept Him right away. No, He has declared His love for the whole world – His creation. He has claimed us and plans to never let us go. Only you can turn away through choice. Choose to love our God today with me for the first time or for the hundredth time. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.   –John 3:16

We serve a sovereign God that makes no mistakes. There are no mistake births. Regardless of when or how you were conceived, whether you were thought of as an accident or a long-awaited gift, you were created by God’s will. It was He who designed to give you life and made you uniquely who you are. Just think out of the more than several billion women in the world there is only one you.