Question. Ever since I became a Christian, people have told me, “Jesus loves you personally.” But I haven't been able to find clear scriptural support for that idea. Why do Christians believe it?
Answer. Great question. It is one thing to say that God is love, or that He loves the world. It is another thing to know that He loves you personally. What is the Biblical evidence for that claim?
If I had to choose the strongest passages that imply “Jesus loves you personally,” or “God loves you personally,” they would be the following:
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).
The Bible’s most famous verse proclaims that God loves the world. If He loves the world, that includes you, which means the Father loves you personally.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1).
Everyone who believes in Jesus is a child of God (cf. John 1:12). If you believe in Jesus, then you are a child of God. And the privilege of being called God’s child shows that He loves you personally.
“In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26-27).
Jesus assures the disciples that the Father personally loves them because they love Jesus and believe He came from God. That means if you love Jesus and believe He came from God, then the Father loves you, too.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? …For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35, 38–39).
Paul uses corporate language here, referring to “us,” meaning the church. If you believe in Jesus, you are a member of His church, and nothing can separate you from the love that God has for you in Christ.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Christ loved those He gave Himself for. Paul knew that Christ died for him, which allowed him to say that the Son of God “loved me.”
Those are all Biblical truths you can deduce and apply to yourself. It takes some logic and reasoning. But I believe—and I know from experience—that there is another way in which God personalizes His love to you, namely, through the witness of the Holy Spirit:
The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:15-16).
The Holy Spirit will testify to your spirit that you are God’s child. And when the Spirit assures you that you are the Father’s child, the love of God is no longer merely a theoretical truth you believe, but a personal reality you know.
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Shawn Lazar (DPT, McMaster Divinity College) is the pastor of Gateway United Baptist Church in Denton, TX. Purchase his book One-Point Preaching here and his latest book Once Saved Always Saved? here.
