We walked through unspoiled snow while fresh flakes fell around us. Like the clean new year, I could only see a short way ahead. But then he passed me throwing cold, careless words like snowballs – the first jerk of 2021. Have you come across one yet? (Have you been one yet?) Already, I need reminders of God’s love for us.
It was bound to happen, because we’re as flawed this year as in the last. Our inner “jerk” pops out in kitchens, classrooms, churches, Facebook posts, bedrooms, or pristine snowy woods. Stressful times stir up our worst and spoil peace between us. There’s nothing like a season of hardships to strain relationships. In this unspoiled, fresh year ahead, it will be a battle to choose peace in our relationships, but it’s worth it.
God loved us into being. He has always initiated overcoming our low and evil moments so we can be in peaceful relationship with Him. Before we love others, C.S. Lewis says, “To love you as I should, I must worship God as Creator. When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.” To get to a peaceful place with people around us this year, we first have to get to a peaceful place with our Creator.
After 2020, some of us wonder if God is really for us. We need to know. Peace with others starts with peace with God. Peace with God begins with knowing we’re loved by Him.
God says a lot about His deep love for us. It’s woven through all of the Bible, but it helps me to have a handy list of truth reminding me of God’s love for us.
10 Verses About God’s Love for Us
- Psalm 5:11 – But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. - Psalm 31:7 – I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul.
- Psalm 36:5-7 – Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. - Lamentations 3:22-23 – Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
- John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
- Romans 8:38-39 – For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- 1 John 3:1a – See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
- 1 John 4:9-12 – This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
- 1 John 4:16 – And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them
- 1 John 4:19 – We love because he first loved us.
I may naturally be a jerk, but God loved me like that. His love changes me from the inside out. If He loved me, I need to make an effort to find peace in my human relationships by loving them. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (See #8)
God’s Love for the New Year
We have God’s love fixed on us going into this new year. So do the people in our lives.
Does that idea feel weird to you? Like the first time you put on a mask in a store? The things of the world may distract us from God’s love. But the stuff of earth also makes us desperate to remember the things of heaven.
The God of the Universe loves you and wants a peaceful relationship with you. Let that quietly land on your heart and mind like new falling snow. Let it comfort the hurt of last year’s hardships and give you peace knowing He is for you. May the peace we find with God give us peace with those around us.
How do you feel about the new year knowing God loves you with compassionate, reliable love?
