God Loves You

READ: ROMANS 8:38-39; 1 JOHN 4:7-11

One thing I wish I could go back and tell my younger self over and over is “God loves you.” It’s something I wish every young person could grasp and believe.

Life can be tough, especially when you’re a teenager. You’re trying to learn about yourself. You discover your style, your likes and dislikes, and how you differ from your friends and family. It can be a hard journey, and at times you might not feel good enough. You might feel unsure of yourself or wish you had more confidence.

But if I could remind younger me and any younger person of anything, it would be that God loves them. You don’t have to try to impress anyone. You don’t have to worry about all the little things. God cares so much for you, and nothing can shake His love for you.

Five or ten years from now, you might dress differently or listen to different music. Life could look very different, but God will still love you. If you’ve put your trust in Jesus, you will still be able to rest in the truth that He is with you and cares about you.

God loves you so much, and you are good enough for Him. He showed how much you’re worth to Him when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave for you. You don’t have to earn His love. You don’t have to impress anyone. Instead, you can lean into His love and know that, because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, you are good enough in His eyes. • Bethany Acker

• What kinds of things make you wonder if God really loves you? Things people say, expectations you put on yourself, lies you’ve heard, ways you’ve been mistreated, etc.? The enemy always wants us to doubt God’s love for us, but because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we can be confident that “nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

• When you begin to doubt God’s love for you, who are trusted Christians in your life who can remind you of His love, such as friends, parents, pastors, youth leaders, or counselors? If you can’t think of anyone right now, you can ask God to help you identify someone in the future.

• Consider taking some time to pray, and just thank God for His incredible love for you.

This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son [Jesus] as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 1 John 4:10 (NLT)