Let Him tell you you're worth wanting, loving, even liking, pursuing, fighting for, and, yes, beloved, keeping.

In Psalm 51:1, King David cried out, "Have mercy on me, O God, / according to your unfailing love." Please receive this truth: God cannot be unbiased toward you. He cannot set His love for you aside and make an objective decision. Once you become God's covenant child, He cannot see you through anything less than a loving Father's eyes.

This is how we have come to know love: He laid down His life for us. 1 John 3:16 You may say, "You don't know what I've been through." Please hear my heart. I am completely compassionate, because I've also been hurt by people who were supposed to love me. But let me say this: no matter how many people have made you feel unloved, the heavenly Father has done so much more to show you that you are loved. If need be, make a list of ways you've

Since it was out of ignorance that I had acted in unbelief, I received mercy, and the grace of our Lord overflowed. 1 Timothy 1:13—14

God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 1 John 4:9

It has been said there was a cross in the heart of God long before the cross was erected at Calvary. As we think about it we will be overwhelmed at the wonder and greatness of His love for us.

It was God's love which knew that men were incapable of obeying His law, and it was His love which promised a Redeemer, a Savior, who would save His people from their sins.

Until the Good News of Jesus Christ burst onto the human scene, the word love was understood mostly in terms of seeking one's own advantage. Loving the unlovely was incomprehensible A loving God reaching down to sinful humans was unthinkable.

Christ was so intolerant of man's lost estate that He left His lofty throne in the heavenlies, took on Himself the form of man, suffered at the hands of evil men, and died a shameful death on a cruel cross to purchase our redemption. So serious was man's plight that the Lord could not look upon it lightly. With the love that was His, He could not be broad-minded about a world held captive by its lusts, its appetites, and its sins.

Don't hold yourselves cheap, seeing that the creator of all things and of you estimates your value so high, so dear, that he pours out for you every day the most precious blood of his only-begotten Son.

For God loves saving, not condemning, and therefore He is patient with bad people, in order to make good people out of bad people.

Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous.