But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Romans 5:8

Recently I received a note from a young woman who was struggling with a renewed sense of her own sinfulness. She saw clearly just how wrong her sin was and how much it dishonored God. Though she was a Christian, she was convinced that God looked upon her with anger and disapproval. “How can I make myself better,” she wondered, “so God will like me again?”

I responded to this woman by pointing her to the truth of Romans 5. Here we see that God’s love for us is demonstrated, not only in Christ’s death for us, but also in the fact that Christ died for us “while we were still sinners” (v. 8). In fact, our sinfulness made us “enemies” of God (v. 10). But Christ died for us even then, thus proving God’s love, even as Christ’s death opened up the chance for us to become God’s friends.

Sometimes we can be like the woman who wrote me the note, so filled with distress over our sin that we begin to doubt God’s love. Or perhaps the suffering of our life makes it hard for us to believe God is really there. When we question or doubt God’s love for us, we come back to the bedrock truth of Christ’s death for us. No matter how we might feel in the moment, God has demonstrated his love through the cross.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: Have you ever doubted God’s love for you? When? Why? How does the fact of God’s love in Christ make a difference in your life?

PRAYER: Dear Lord, what can I say but “thank you” for your great love and for making this love known to me in so many ways. Most of all, you have demonstrated your love for me in the death of Jesus. The cross shows the truth I find later in Romans, that nothing in all creation can separate me from your love. Thank you, Lord!

Of course your love is not for me alone, but for “the world,” that is, the people of the world. So today I pray for others, that they might know your love for them. I pray for those who don’t know you, who don’t have faith in you, that they might hear the good news of your love in Christ and respond by trusting you. I pray also for those who believe, but are struggling with the thought that you love them. Dear Lord, refresh them in your love. Pour out even more of your love into their hearts through your Spirit. Amen.