God Likes You

The LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

Zephaniah 3:17

IF THERE’S ONE thing the Scriptures make abundantly clear, it’s that God loves us. God created us, after all. He became one of us and died on a Roman cross in order to save us from our sins. He gave us the Bible to help us learn about him and about important truths such as salvation and eternal life. He’s proved himself in so many ways in order to make it crystal clear that he has given us everything he cherishes, especially his Son.

Yet, deep down, we as Christians often struggle with a secret fear that God doesn’t like us. We fear that he disapproves of us and our stubborn commitment to sin—that he puts up with us only because he loves us in the same way that a frustrated parent still loves a wild and wayward child. We fear that God associates with us only out of a sense of duty or obligation.

Thank goodness we have verses like Zephaniah 3:17 that help us put such fears to rest. The reality is that God has promised to “take delight in you with gladness.” Remember how you light up inside when one of your favorite people walks into a room? That’s how God feels when he interacts with you. He delights in you.

God likes you so much that he’s promised to calm your fears—even the fear that he disapproves of who you are and what you do. God has even promised to rejoice over you with “joyful songs.” In the same way that children become so full of mirth that they can’t help but break into song, so God dances with joy at the thought of spending eternity with you.

In short, God not only loves you but also likes you very much, and he’s excited about spending eternity with you.