How can I know God’s love? This is the question behind so much of our spiritual hunger. Here’s one response to the question. The argument is longer than I would like, but it has been very helpful to many.
Many people who sit in church on Sunday and many outside the church believe that ultimately, Christianity is about learning to be a better person—losing your profanity, losing my anger, being more patient, loving other people, giving to the poor, being a blessing to those around you etc… There is nothing wrong with those things—far from it. Those things should flow from all healthy believers’ lives in increasing measure. If a person carries this wrong belief system about what it is to follow Christ, he/she may enjoy hearing about God’s love; he/she hasn’t much experienced God’s love and almost certainly doesn’t understand the connection between God love for them and their spiritual growth. I have observed that this is especially so in churches where the “other” side of God is spoken of little. That is—his holiness, his power, transcendence, justice, wrath—etc. Ironically, (and this is important) it’s only in those contexts that the love of God can be well appreciated/understood as it should be. That sounds strange, but let me explain.
But that only shoves the question back one level, “Ok, I know I need to trust Christ before I can obey him regularly, but how do I learn to trust him?” The answer is—you trust someone who you are utterly convinced loves you like there is no tomorrow--someone who has shown you that they would do anything—make even the most extravagant sacrifice imaginable for you—like God did when he sent Jesus to die on the cross for us. Underneath any strong faith in God is the powerful assurance of his LOVE for us. This is what Paul is getting at in Galatians 5:6 “6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Again, this only makes sense. We trust those we know who love us and if Jesus is willing to show his love by suffering on the cross for us, that’s an incomparable expression of trust-engendering love.
But again, that only pushes back the question. “Ok, I know I obey God because I trust him because he loves me, but what causes me to love him much more?” Before we answer, we must highlight crucial foundational truth. Before we see how we love God, we must first know that we can only love God in response to his love for us. In other words, no one has autonomous love for God. All our love for him is in response to the love he has shown us. First John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” The degree to which we have internalized and appreciate God’s love for us in the gospel is the degree to which by God’s grace, we will obey him from our faith rooted in love. As we internalize God’s love for us that will free us to trust him which in turn will by God’s grace free us to obey in love.
Given that truth, now we can examine the question of how we come to love God much. The Bible persistently teaches that the most powerful way to know God’s love is—to see our need of the cross of Jesus—his most powerful expression of love for us and, upon experiencing that need, calling to mind the reality of our forgiveness of the deep, dark and wicked sin we have in our hearts. Let me support that claim. In Luke chapter seven, Jesus is in the home of Simon the Pharisee. Simon is self-righteous. That is, he thinks he has it all together and therefore looks down on everyone else. They simply aren’t as “holy” and devoted to God as he is. Also in Simon’s house with Jesus is a prostitute who is pictured wiping Jesus’ muddy feet with her hair and as water, using her tears. Obviously, this is a profound display of sacrificial love made necessary because Simon had not even washed Jesus’ feet or put oil on his head when he entered his home. This was a significant omission in this culture—like not hanging up a visitor’s winter coat in our day when they enter our homes. Simon snubbed Jesus this way and the prostitute—who had obviously been talking to Jesus about her life—was trying to ‘clean up” and meet a need Simon would not meet for Jesus.
Jesus analyzes this situation, telling Simon that the reason he did not even extend the most fundamental courtesy to him was because he sensed little need of forgiveness and therefore had experience little if any. Jesus says in Luke 7:47, “He who has been forgiven little, loves little.” On the other hand, the prostitute—these women were thought to be in a separate class of sinners from every other sinner. When she met Jesus who extended God’s forgiveness to her, she, who doubtless had felt unforgivable, was so intensely grateful that Jesus would completely forgive her for her
The point is that if I am a “small” sinner—that is—I am a pretty good person who on a regular basis hears that God loves me and (as so many do) that I come to assume on that love—if I am that “small” sinner, then I will have a “small” Savior and if I have a small Savior, then I will have a small (if any) love for God because “he who has been forgiven little, loves little.” However, if I see myself as a deeply wretched sinner who is utterly convinced and regularly remind myself that I deserve nothing but the wrath of God, then I will have a “BIG” Savior who has forgiven me MUCH and therefore will have a correspondingly BIG love for God because “he who has been forgiven much, loves much.” If I love much, I will trust much and if I trust much, I will obey much. These are vital truths about God’s love and how to know it.
When I realize that my heart is desperately wicked and that I have a Savior who sacrificed so much for me, I have no reason to doubt or to deny Him my complete devotion.
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