“Long ago the LORD said to Israel: ‘I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.’” Jeremiah 31:3 (NLT).
God is saying this to Israel, His own special people. But He also says it to each person who will believe it! It is a fact – God loves you and me! It is a pure love; we don’t have to do anything to earn His love. It is not human love which often comes with unspoken demands and conditions. It is absolutely pure, He only wants the very best for us.
Most of us easily feel inferior: there’s always someone who is better than us, maybe in looks, personality, intelligence, achievements, social status, and so on. But God doesn’t look at any of these things. He made us as we are, and He wants to do a work within us, starting from where we are and not from some place we think we should have reached before God will accept us.
No, we don’t need to do anything to earn God’s love. It is offered to us, but we have to humble ourselves and accept it. This is one of the best things a person can do in their life – and it is the start of a completely new way of living where God can completely change us to become like Him (Romans 8:29).
God wants to “rebuild” us
The Bible goes on to say in Jeremiah 31:4 (NLT), “I will rebuild you, my virgin Israel. You will again be happy and dance merrily with your tambourines.” “RE-build,” says God.
David writes in Psalm 139:13-16 (GNT), “You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart. When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother's womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there—you saw me before I was born.” Yes, God knew what He was doing when He made us in our mother’s womb; each one of us was being created as the special, unique person that we are. We were made as God wanted but He hasn’t finished His work with us. He wants to “rebuild” us so that we “again will be happy”!
What we are being “rebuilt” to
We all are born with a sinful nature, so sinful that by nature we hate God. (Romans 3:10-18.) But this doesn’t mean that God loves us less. He loves because He is love, and He can’t do anything but love. Therefore He wants to rebuild us. We should become happy people who love God in return for His love to us, and who love other people with that same love! That takes a complete rebuilding! But it is possible! It happens when we learn to obey God’s laws and commandments. We can’t do this by ourselves; we need God’s power and grace to do it.
Jesus says these powerful words in Matthew 5:43-48 (NCV), “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.’ But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you. If you do this, you will be true children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on good people and on evil people, and He sends rain to those who do right and to those who do wrong. If you love only the people who love you, you will get no reward. Even the tax collectors do that. And if you are nice only to your friends, you are no better than other people. Even those who don’t know God are nice to their friends. So you must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
Who is able to do this? Jesus did it – a man who was created just as we are; a man with flesh and blood, with the same nature that we all experience: and despite of this, He was without sin in all the temptations that He came into here on earth (Hebrews 4:15). Just before the end of His life, He ended His “high priestly” prayer with these words, “… that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:26.
And that prayer is still relevant today. Through the Holy Spirit, He will give us the power to overcome our sinful nature, just as He overcame. He will give us the power to overcome all hatred, jealousy, anger, irritation that lives in our nature, and He will give us power to love our fellowmen like He loved us.
Let us give ourselves to God without holding anything back so that we get to know, personally, the great power of His love that is able to change us completely. When we do this, we will never be the same again!
Read more: Is it possible to live like Jesus? and How is the love of God made perfect in us?