Do you ever have difficulty believing that God really, truly loves you? Perhaps you are so aware of your own imperfections that you think, “Why would He love me?  How could He?”

Dwight L. Moody, the famous evangelist, used to tell a story about a farmer who was found kneeling at a soldier’s grave. Someone asked him, “Why do you pay so much attention to this grave? Was your son buried here?”

“No,” he said, “During the war my family were all sick, and I was drafted. I didn’t know how I could possibly leave them. One of my neighbors came over and said, ‘I will go for you; I have no family.’ During the battle the neighbor was wounded and later died. And, sir, I have come a great many miles that I might write over his grave these words, ‘He died for me.'”[1]

You and I could write those same words on a hill called Calvary—the place where Jesus was crucified.  There the Savior took your place and died for your sins—yours and mine–so that we did not have to. You can say those same four words that the farmer wrote: “He died for me.”

The Bible says, “We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us” “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 John 3:16, 1 John 4:9,10).

Friend, you need never doubt that God loves you—no matter what the circumstances. Your proof is those four words, “He died for me.”

[1] Dwight L. Moody,  Prevailing Prayer (Abbotsford, WI: Aneko Press / Life Sentence Publishing, Inc., date unknown), chapter 5.