Because He Loves Me

"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation."

God loving me is something that to me is a given. It’s knowledge that is so deeply embedded into my heart and woven into my spirit, that I never doubt it.

The times when the storm clouds gather, the sea begins to churn and my little boat of a life is tossed about and on the brink of being engulfed, it never occurs to me that God has stopped loving me.

I have never posed the question “If God loves me, why do bad things happen to me?” Bad things just happen. It’s a fact of life.

Is me loving God also a given? Is the knowledge of my love so deeply embedded in His heart and woven into His Spirit, that He never doubts it?

“Because he loves me…” isn’t “if he loves me” or “when he loves me” or “for as long as he loves me”. God knows my heart. When Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, it wasn’t some insecure person needing affirmation who was asking. When he asked Peter the question, he already knew the answer. He asked it to give Peter the opportunity to know the answer for himself. In knowing the answer, Peter has a security that armed him for the battle to come.

“Because he loves me” isn’t “because he reads the Bible” or “because he prays” or “because he goes to church every Sunday”. I could do all those things and they might not be an act of love at all. Because I love him, I do all those things because they give me the chance to draw near and spend time with the one I love.

Today, when I read the words “Because he loves me..” I knew they were words spoken to me by God. He knows that I love him.