When God looks at you and me, what does He see?
- A rebel against Him? Surely.
- Someone who is prone to wander? By all means.
- An inconsistent follower, delighting in Him one minute and shortly thereafter acting as if He doesn’t exist? Yes.
- A person who is by nature an object of His wrath? Certainly.
But what else does He see?
Consider how Daniel is addressed three times in Daniel 9 and 10: “Man greatly loved.” Alternate translations include “precious” and “esteemed.”
What was true of Daniel is also true of every person who is in Jesus. God loves you. He loves you yourself, as an individual.
Christians easily slip into thinking of God’s love as solely corporate instead of individual. For we know “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), God set His love on the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 7:7), God’s steadfast love for His people as a whole endures forever (more than forty verses).
Yes, God loves His people, the church, the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, which He is perfecting. Praise Him for that love!
But He also deeply loves each individual who is part of that Bride. Jesus makes this abundantly clear in the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15). Indeed, Jesus treats Zaccheus and Nicodemus and Mary and Martha and Peter and the healed leper and everyone He encounters as individuals, sheep who have wandered and thus need a good shepherd to carry them on His shoulders.
Consider especially the rich young ruler. In Mark’s account, he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says he already knows the commandments. He replies he has kept them all from his youth. Now, he hasn’t – his response will show that he has not loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. But instead of challenging the man’s answer, Jesus looks at him and loves him! Jesus loves this man, who is about to walk away from Him because the cost of following Jesus is everything.
You see, Jesus loves us:
- not because of our obedience,
- not because of our worship,
- not because of our good works
He loves us because He loves us. And nothing in all the world can separate any individual from the love of God that each of us has in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).
So: When God looks at you and me, what does He see?
Yes, He sees clearly all that is wrong with us. He knows much better than we how far short of His glory we fall.
But if we are in Christ, he sees those He greatly loves. Those who are precious to Him – so precious that He bought them at a price (1 Corinthians 6:20; see also Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 1:18-19, and Revelation 5:9).
So tell yourself: “I am a man or woman greatly loved, precious to God the Father in God the Son. He delights in me! Nothing can stop Him from conforming me completely to the image of His Son.”
Rest in this great love.
