If a person has been abused or rejected and is unaware of having been loved, the person is likely to live under the illusion that he or she is unloved and unlovable. But the reality is that everyone is loved unconditionally 100%, including the worst sinner in the world: “For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person…. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rm 5:6,7a,8).
“God is love” (1 Jn 4:8b). “If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tm 2:13).
“In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:9,10).
“Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings he endured…. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole; by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all” (Is 53:4a-6).
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned…” (Jn 3:16-19a).
“Even if my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me in” (Ps 27:1)). “…for he has said, ‘I will never forsake you or abandon you’” (Heb 13:5).
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost” (Lk 19:10). And Jesus graphically illustrates this truth in Chapter 15 of St. Luke’s Gospel through the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. All three depict God pursuing the sinner who is lost or has run away to emphasize that in spite of the sin, he loves the sinner. The father doesn’t even wait for the return of the prodigal, but rushes out to meet him. Immediately the father embraces and kisses his son, and oblivious to the boy’s confession shouts to his servants, “Get the best robe, shoes for his feet, a ring for his finger and kill the fatted calf, for my son who was lost has returned!” And there is a great celebration.
The father could not care less that the only reason the prodigal had a change of heart for returning home was because he wanted something to eat; his only concern was that his son was returning home.
And our loving, compassionate God has the same unconditional love for you and for every person, because as is recorded in Chapters 1 and 5 of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, you are made to the very image and likeness of God. Therefore, apply this freeing truth to yourself: You are so incalculably precious to the Lord that if you were the only person in the world who needed to be redeemed, the Word would have become flesh, Jesus Christ, and suffered and died for you alone. “God loves you as if there is only one to love.”
Too often people try to limit God by their own limitations; that is they think they are so sinful and unlovable that he could never love them. But the Lord says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Is 55:8,9).
Yes, we are all sinners, but God hates the sin and loves the sinner and wants all to share in his happiness. Just be patient because God is not finished with us yet. He can and will draw straight with our crooked lines, if we allow him to. A precious gem found buried in a field or at the bottom of the sea has become encrusted with the elements, but it is no less a precious gem. True beauty is within, and even though that beauty of being made to the image and likeness of God may be encrusted or tarnished by a wayward life of sin and/or the illusion of thinking we are unloved, and unlovable, God has depth vision; that is, he looks beyond whatever disguises our true beauty and worth and longs to bring forth our transformation so that we may become increasingly whole, holy, happy, human, free, mature, in control, lovers, Christlike, who we are called to be.
At this moment, Jesus is saying to you, “Come to me with any doubts about your true worth, and I will refresh you–I will prove to you how precious and lovable you are” (cf. Mt 11:28).
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