John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Everything that God does is done without effort or strain.
He does all his acts with equal ease and tranquillity.
We are often tempted to wonder how God could love us, but honest as this feeling is, it is nevertheless the result of a wrong way of looking at things.
God does not love us because we are hard or easy to love; He loves us because He is God, not because we are good or bad or more attractive or less so.
God's love is not drawn out of Him by its object; it flows out from God in a steady stream because He is love.
"God so loved the world," not because the world was lovable but because God is love.
Christ did not die for us that God might love us; He died for us because God already loved us from everlasting.
Love is not the result of redemption; it is the cause of it.
One question may demand to be answered: Does God love some people more than others?
If not, what was meant by calling John "the disciple Jesus loved," as if to say that He loved John more than the rest?
The answer is simple.
John was more responsive to the love of Christ and could receive and enjoy it to a greater fullness.
The divine love could operate toward this loving man with a joyous freedom not possible with others who had not his simplicity and faith.
The sunflower that turns its face to the sky all day long gets more sun than the violet that hides among the leaves.
But the same sun shines in fullness upon both.
God has no favorites, except as some of His children by their loving response make it possible for Him to shower more love upon them.
God loves us because He is God.
He does not love some of us more or less than others.
He loves each one.
Out of His love He has provided redemption.
Are we running to His love or running from it?
Father, You so love me that You gave Christ for me.
He so loved me that He paid the penalty of my sin by dying for me.
In thanks and worship I bow before You.
~A. W. Tozer
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