I once heard a pastor define faith as "knowing God". And to know God is to first know that he loves you.
God IS love.
I believe that you cannot fully love others or be motivated to take care of yourself unless you are convinced of God's love for you.
You also cannot do the good works to which He calls you because they require the power of faith working through love within you.
To encourage you in faith and love today, please watch this video that a reader named Rachelle emailed to me that illustrates God's love for you. It brought me to tears:
In addition, here are some scriptures that detail God's love for you. Consider them as God's love letter to you and note how we start out as downtrodden, but end up victorious!
Please pass this message on to everyone you know so they too can become rooted and grounded in God's love.
God's Love Letter Scriptures
Ezekiel 16:8
"When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine," says the Lord GOD.
Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 13:1
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
John 16:27
for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.
Romans 5:5
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 8:37-39
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Galatians 5:6
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
Ephesians 2:4
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 5:2
And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
2 Thessalonians 2:16
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.
2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Titus 3:4-7
But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
1 John 3:1
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who
loves is born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:8
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:9
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
1 John 4:10
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:11
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:12
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.
1 John 4:16
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Jude 1:21
keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Revelation 1:5
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
May the Lord saturate you with His love this day and every day!