God loves us

God created us and He loves us.

This is the most fundamental truth the religious establishment ever missed.

God created us and He loves us.

When I have a period of doubt, and there are times when I do, I think about the amazing fact that in all the vast, known universe, there is only one planet like ours, surrounded by a bubble of fortifying oxygen, blanketed in water and fertile dirt, bursting with trees and grasses and flowers and vines, teeming with fish, birds, animals and even insects of amazing designs.

Only one.  Only one beautiful little blue gem of a planet circling a star --not the biggest nor the smallest star, but exactly the perfect star, the perfect size and distance from earth to warm this heavenly body to make it the perfect environment to support life.

This little planet, so exquisite in design, is protected by the orbits of other, larger planets, some with formidable asteroid belts that orbit around them, providing a shield of sorts to protect earth from stray meteors that could smash us if they were to collide with us.

This little planet, loved by God, sparkles with His great beauty, from mighty waterfalls and ocean waves to pristine dewdrops glistening on an intricate spiderweb.  He planned and brought into being giant redwood trees, white blossomed baby's breath, and knobby squashes.  He put fleet footed squirrels into the forests and ferocious lions on the plains, and in the jungle He set apes and monkeys to frolic with their round-eyed babies clinging to their backs.  He made rhinoceroses, antelopes, bears, hippos, rabbits, foxes, cows, elephants and alligators.  His bird collection and fish collection encompass more shapes, colors and fancy features than we could ever finish recording, not to mention the butterflies and the crickets and the beetles.  And fireflies.  My goodness.  Who would have thought fireflies?

Then, into all of it, all the beauty and variety and humor and delight, among mountains, islands, seas and rivers, He placed humanity, a man and a woman, to share with Him in enjoyment of all the good things He had made.  And the man and the woman were His piece de resistance.  His magnum opus.  His favorite.

Yes, God loves us, and we are His favorite part of all that He created.  Everything He created, including us, was for joy, and for Him to enjoy.  All of the things He created before He made us were His intentional gifts for us to enjoy.  He prepared a playground, a museum, a school, a park, a cathedral of beauty and wonder and amazement--He created Eden--especially for humanity.  Then, like a parent presenting gifts to a child on Christmas morning, He set Adam and Eve into the midst of it and watched with delight to see them discover and enjoy.  Their delight was His delight, and His delight was in their delight.  He asked nothing but to love them and be loved by them, for them to be astonished and thrilled by all He had made for them, and for them to trust Him to give them everything good.

We must understand this, this basis of love, this delight God has in His creation, and especially in the creation of man and woman.

Some religious people say that God hates us, that sin makes us ugly, disgusting and totally worthless.  We are worms, they say, and there is no explanation for why God would love us.  We should be ground into the dirt and left to decompose, we are that revolting, we in our squalid sin.

Sin does disfigure us, it is true.  That is why God hates sin.  God sees sin as a cancer on His beloved creation, a wasting disease that He will overcome.  He knew before the foundation of the world that sin would infect His perfect, beautiful world and bring destruction to His handiwork.  He knew, but He chose Jesus, before the foundation of the world, to overcome the destruction of sin and save us, redeem us, purify us, and present us faultless before the throne of God, without blemish.  He chose us to inherit eternal life with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth, the New Creation, Eden restored, Paradise.

This, God says, is how much I love you.  I gave you everything, and then when you turned away from me and destroyed your lives by seeking satisfaction outside of my providence, I came to save you, to bring you back.  I came to show you the truth, to help you see what is good and desirable for life, and to make you new and holy.  You are my precious masterpiece of creation.  I treasure you, and I will save you.  I love you.  I love you, and I will fix what you can never fix.  I will pay what you could never pay, and I will suffer what I do not want you to suffer.  I will die for you, so you can be redeemed from this death-trap of a fallen world and live with me forever in Paradise.  I love you that much.

This is love: 

Not that we loved God, 

but that He loved us 

and sent His Son 

to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

~1 John 4:10

For God so loved the world 

that He gave His one and only Son, 

that whoever believes in Him 

shall not perish but have eternal life.

~John 3:16

For God did not 

send His Son into the world

to condemn the world,

but in order that the world

might be saved through Him.

~ John 3:17

But God shows His love for us 

in that while we were still sinners, 

Christ died for us.

~Romans 5:8

God Loves Us.