Does God Love Me? The Love of God & Our Individual Worth
The love of God is directly tied to our individual worth. Because God loves us, no matter what, we each have infinite value.
Hey y’all, Tiffany here.
I think one of the biggest struggles I have as a parent is to help my children see themselves the way I see them.
Our oldest especially has struggled in the past with feeling happy and confident. After a lot of prayer last year on the matter, I came to understand that for her to have those qualities, I needed to help her understand that God loved her. To help with that, I turned to the scriptures.
At first, it felt a bit like the chicken and the egg. Which one came first? The list of verses I was researching had verses about both almost mixed together.
Until I found 1 John 4:19: “We love him, because he first loved us.”
Then it was clear: God loved us first.
If you want to know more about His love, you should read our post on The Little Engine That Could.
The love God has for us
God loves each one of us as if we were the only person in the entire world. No matter how lonely you may feel, He loves you – individually.
At first, that sounds a little hard to wrap our minds around. Almost as if because He loves all of us, His love for us individually isn’t all that special. Kind of like in The Incredibles when Dash tells his mom that saying because everyone’s special, that’s like saying no one it.
But love doesn’t work that way.
Think of the important people in your life: does the love you have for one change the love you have for another? Does having a child make you love other children, or even your spouse, any less than you already do?
Of course not.
It’s all for you.
God knows you. Individually. This quote says it all:
“The least significant person in the world is worth more than galaxies and worlds to our Father in Heaven.”
~President Gordon B. Hinckley
That means that even if you had been the only person in the entire history of the world, God still would have created the universe. Just for you.
The Atonement would have still happened. Just for you.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Savior of the world took on the punishment of the sins of every single person, individually. He would have done it just for you.
C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity:
“He [Christ] has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.
In fact, He did – there was a moment in that Garden where He thought of you. Your life. Your experiences. And your sorrows. Over 2,000 years ago, during the most important moment in the history of all creation, the Savior had moments where He thought of you, and only you.
Can you feel the love He has for you?
The love we have for God
Now because God loves us, and He has done so much for you, we love Him. When we begin to understand the love He has for us, then we love Him in return. How can we not?
It makes the first great commandment to love the Lord our God easier.
And all He asks of us in return for all of that shared love is this: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
When we love God because we understand His love for us, following His commandments becomes clearer. We desire a closer relationship with Him, and we yearn to do things to please Him.
To learn more about how to follow Him, check out this 30 day gospel study of the Restoration.
The love only grows
I love my husband and my children. And sometimes, I love them more than other times.
When my husband remembers our anniversary and does something sweet, I love him a little more.
When my kids bring me flowers they’ve picked, I love them a little more.
God loves each of us because we are His children. But when we obey Him, when we serve others, when we follow Him – then His love for us grows.
Consider the following scriptures:
- John 10:17 “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life.”
- Deut. 7:12-13 “if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them….he will love thee.”
- John 14:21 “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him.”
- John 16:27 “For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”
And as His love for us grows due to our righteousness, our love for Him grows as well! It’s a never-ending circle of growing, expanding love.
So remember, when you are feeling alone, that you are “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Ne 1:15) because you are worth more than the wondrous creations of the universe.
An earlier version of this post was written by Tiffany on The Crazy Shopping Cart
