3.7 Personalizing God’s love for us

We have seen the perfect demonstration of God’s love through Jesus. We know about it but how do we experience it?

The apostle John is also known as the Apostle of Love. He was closest to Jesus and his epistles focus on God’s love. He seemed to have known and experienced God’s love more than the other disciples.

But Peter had it differently. Unlike John who was conscious of Jesus’ love, Peter boasted of his own love for Jesus (Matt 26:35). In Jesus’ hour of need, Peter denied Him 3 times. Instead of focusing on our love for God like Peter, we need to learn from John how to be conscious of Jesus’ love for us.

We know that God loves everyone equally and does not show favoritism. But why is it that John was able to experience more of God’s love and respond to Jesus?

When writing the gospel of John, he referred to himself as, “The disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20). He personalized Jesus’ love for himself so that he could be conscious of His love at all times. We should do the same. When we personalize God’s love, we will experience it afresh. Today, you can call yourself “God’s beloved child”.