After the Resurrection, Yeshua (Jesus) told Mary Magdalene to go tell all His followers, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (John 20:17).[1] God is our Father and He loves us very much. You may say, “I wish I could have lived when Yeshua and the disciples walked on the earth.” But God carved out for you the most precious age to walk in—even more so than what the early apostles and prophets experienced. You are not here by mistake. God formed you in your mother’s womb and planted you here in the earth at this moment (Psalm 139:13–16). We must see the dramatic reality of who we are and what God is getting ready to do through us.
As sin and lawlessness increase, most people’s love will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). So it becomes extremely important for us to know the love that God has for us (John 3:16). Yeshua knew this love when He said, “The Father loves Me, and I love the Father” (Matthew 17:5; John 5:20). Christ had an awareness of God’s love for Him, and He functioned out of the knowledge and understanding of that love. And the Father sent Yeshua to bring the knowledge of that love to each one of us that we might be filled up to all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).
Everything that God does is born out of love. “Love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. … If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:7, 12). If God were to act outside of love, He would be acting outside of His own character. So it is impossible for God not to act in love. We must come to know the power and sheer awesomeness of God’s love for us. His love is beyond our human ability to understand. It will take an impartation beyond human knowledge and understanding to know the length and breadth and height and depth of the love that God has for us (Ephesians 3:16–19). When we come to know this love, we will abide in God and He will abide in us because God is love (1 John 4:16).
Christ’s purpose was to make the love of God something that could be imparted and understood by humanity (John 15:9–13). Everything He experienced was with the knowledge that God loved Him. What did Yeshua say after the resurrection? “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). We must come into the knowledge of this love because Yeshua is sending us into the world with this same purpose: to impart the love of the Father into the lives of people.
When the love of God is real to us, we will be exploding: “You have to experience God’s love! You have to come into His presence!” Nothing else matters when you know God’s love for you. Then you will understand that He causes all things in your life to work together for good (Romans 8:28). Yeshua was able to go through the cross and everything else He had to go through because He knew the love of God. Knowing God’s love for us is the greatest preparation we can have to walk as the light of the world through the days ahead of us.
Listen to this entire message: GIG220 Know the Love God Has for Us
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).