How much does God love you and me? He loves us at least as much as He loves Jesus, because if He loved us any less, He would not have given Jesus to die for us!
So my question is: How much does God love Jesus?
God affirmed His love for Jesus openly and publicly to Him at significant times:
- 1. At His Baptism—Before being tempted of Satan in the wilderness. “This is my BELOVED son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).
- 2. On the Mt. of Transfiguration when Moses and Elijah spoke to Him of His approaching crucifixion. “This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: Hear Him” (Matt. 17:5).
- 3. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Jews sought to kill Him. At the same time, as the word of Lazarus’ resurrection spread, Greeks came “desiring to see Him.” Jesus knew by this that His hour of death was even closer, and He was troubled in His soul, saying, “Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause come I into this hour. Father, glorify thy Name.”
Then there came a voice from heaven saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:21-28).
Jesus knew the Father was always with Him. He said to His disciples:
“The hour is come when every man will scatter and leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32).
John 8:16: “…I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.”
John 8:29: “And He that sent me is with me: The Father has not left me alone…”
Some might point out that on the cross, in His hour of greatest suffering, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
Notice what He did not say: “My Father, my Father…”, because the Father never forsook Him on the cross, or Jesus would not have been able to say, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Rather, He said, “My God” because as the sin offering, He represented all our sins, and a holy God could not look upon them, but had to turn away!
Even Satan knew how much God loved His Son Jesus. That’s why in his tempting Jesus, twice he said, “If you be the Son of God.” He was egging Jesus on to do a miracle—not to see a miracle, but to raise doubts in Jesus’ mind of His identity. Notice that Satan did not say, “If you be the Beloved Son of God,” which is what God called Him at His baptism, because he did not want to remind Jesus that His Father loved Him! And he never wants us to be reminded of how much our Father loves us! He not only loves us as much as He loves Jesus—but He loves us more!
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him, should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). And when we believe on Him, we receive not only eternal life in the age to come, but right here and now “He has made us accepted in the BELOVED” (Ephesians 1:6). The BELOVED is Jesus!
This is why Jesus prayed in Gethsemane to His Father: ‘… That they may know that you have sent me, and that you love them as you have loved me” (John 17:23). Jesus said that God loves us as much as He loves Jesus!
If there was one message that the disciple John knew, it was how much Jesus loved him. It always tickles me when I read in the Gospel of John as he is relating an account that involved him and another, or other disciples. He will mention the name or names of the others, but instead of referring to himself as John, he says, “and the disciple that Jesus loved.” Sometimes, it makes me laugh out loud. I realize that John was not saying this from a superior standpoint, that he thought Jesus loved him more than the others, but it spotlights just how deeply and assuredly he knew that Jesus loved him.
“What manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God…. BELOVED, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be…” (1John 3:1-2).
This would be a good time to sing that sacred lullaby and first children’s song we teach our little ones:
“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…. Yes, Jesus loves me—for the Bible tells me so!”
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