I was up way later than I needed to be, trying to enjoy a little more “me-time” before any effort to keep my eyelids open felt like lifting two fifty pound dumbells. I nestled in my bed, ready to continue listening to the audio version of Michelle Obama’s book Becoming. I was about a quarter in, where she talked about her experience making plans for college. She mentioned dealing with a college counselor’s low expectations of her and how she applied to Princeton despite that counselor’s discouragement and got accepted. In the midst of that story, she said she refused to let one person’s opinion dislodge everything she knew about herself. Everything her parents had always told her.
I sat up in bed, fully immersed in a revelation. Her words resonating with me in a way I hadn’t experienced. The thought came to me that, sometimes, we’re not bold enough to live out God’s call on our lives because we don’t really know who we are in Him or how He much he must love you to do the things He’s already done for us.
I remembered the first time someone ever told me God loved me. After sitting in a friend’s car unloading a barrage of thoughts and frustrations, his words comforted me. Yet, for years, I grappled with what that really meant. I wondered how I could be seen as worthy of such love when I’d known people whose words and actions had made it clear that they didn’t think I was worthy of much more than mistreatment.
As a person who calls herself a journalist of sorts, I don’t know why I never investigated this love with the same voracity as I would a trending news story. Eventually, I did, though. I saw that I had been building my identity like a house of cards on a broken surface—everything always on the brink of falling apart, wavering with the slightest gust of wind.
The problem was that I didn’t know who I was at my core.
I didn’t know that God created me in His image, sent Jesus to die on the cross, and called me His child because I was valuable.
I didn’t know that God numbered the hairs on my head and developed a plan meant for my good because I am unique and made for a unique purpose.
I didn’t know that God continues to transform my heart, renew my mind, and order my steps because—though I am imperfect—I am still good enough to fulfill all that He calls me to.
And He did that for all of us. Once I began to understand that and who I was in Him, I knew I needed to hold onto that truth. I’ve heard people say replacing negative thoughts with positive ones can change your life. In the same way, I think replacing the lies I’d told myself for years with the truth of God’s Word about who he created me to be changed mine.
12 Scriptures About God’s Love For Us
So, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be nice to consider the One whose name is synonymous with love—and how much He loves us.
Here are 12 scriptures that point us to that love and help us remember it:
“For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
John 3:16-17
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 15:13
“We love because He first loved us.”
1 John 4:19
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are”
1 John 3:1
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,”
Titus 3:4-5
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
James 1:17
“Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Luke 12:7
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38
“Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.”
Psalm 136:26
