“Daddy, Do You Still Love Me?”

Our men’s group at church is studying the “not a fan” video series. Kile Idleman, creator of the series and author of the book by the same name, told a story about his daughter. She was playing with her mom’s fingernail polish and spilled most of the bottle on their white couch in the living room. To hide her no-no she flipped the cushions over to hide her stain.

Eventually mom turned the cushions over and noticed the bright red stain on their lily-white cushions. Kyle called her into the room and they talked about the stain and told her not to play with her mom’s stuff.. Then he assured her everything would be okay. After they talked through the incident, the little girl ran to her room crying. Kyle followed to comfort her. When her sobs subsided to whimpers she looked up at her father and asked him, “Daddy, do you still love me?”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course, I do.”

Don’t some of us Christians sometimes ask the same thing of our Heavenly Father? After we’ve  blown it, after we’ve spent a season backsliding into sin again, don’t many of us wonder whether God still loves us? When we stray from obedience to God, when we leave a big red stain on our own couch, do we ever ask God, “Do you still love me?”

God’s answer is always a resounding “Yes.”

He shouts His love for us from the cross.

Are you a murderer, a prostitute, a cripple, an adulterer, an adulteress, a liar, a busybody, a philanderer, a divorcée, a lifelong sinner, a hypocrite, a racist, a womanizer? Or maybe you’re demon possessed, or blind. The Bible tells us that Jesus encountered sinners just like these during His ministry. He loved them all. And brought most of them into a loving, saving relationship with Himself.

Do you think sometimes your sin is worse than these folks? We need to remind ourselves over and over that the Bible tells us there’s nothing we could ever do that would make God love us more, and there’s nothing we could ever do that would make God love us less.

Here’s just a few of the Scriptures from the Bible that proclaim God’s unconditional, eternal love for us:

John 14:21-24  Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Jeremiah 1:4-5 “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”
Ephesians 2:4-5  “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
Jeremiah 31:3
“The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: I have loved you with an everlasting (I looked up “everlasting in the dictionary. It means it will last forever) love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”(NIV)
Psalm 136:26 “Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.” (NIV)
Lamentations 3:22 – 25
Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
1 John 4:9-10 “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
John 3:16  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (I looked up the word, “whosoever” in the dictionary and it means “whosoever”).
Titus 3: 4-5 “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
1 John 3:1
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Romans 8: 35-39
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NIV)

Do you believe every word of every one of these verses? All of them are true about God’s love for us. If you don’t believe any or all of them, that doesn’t mean they’re not true.

If we feel condemned or unworthy or unloved or lonely or isolated, those come straight from the pit of he__. We are none of those things. We are fully accepted, unconditionally loved, sealed by the Holy Spirit until Christ comes to take us home.

Next time you feel like asking God, “Father, do you still love me?” Go get your Bible and meditate on these verses. If you still insist on asking, just remember God promises that His answer will always be “Yes.”

Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? If you’re not, I have news for you. God loves you. You may not believe that, but it’s true. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world…” That’s every man, woman and child. That’s me and you.  And He will love you your entire life, until you take your last breath. Until then you have the choice: believing what God says about you or not.  If you do believe and have a personal relationship with Christ, God promises you will live forever with Him in His kingdom. If you don’t you will live forever separated from God in eternal torment and anguish in outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (from the book of Matthew). Would you like to know how to begin a personal relationship with God and life with Him forever? If you’d like to know more, follow this link.

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Author’s Note: In my opinion, Kile Idleman’s not a fan could easily become The Shack of this decade. The exception is that Idleman’s book is non-fiction and he challengers readers to answer the question, “‘Are you a fan (an enthusiastic admirer) or a faithful, committed follower of Jesus?” It will be hard to answer that question honestly without reading his book.