James & Carolanne

God loves you.  Revolutionary isn't it.  It's so easy to say, yet so difficult to understand or comprehend.  I've been reading in Daniel lately and one of the things that stuck out to me was the language that is used to describe God's feelings about Daniel.  Daniel 9:20-23 says the following:

²⁰ I went on praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, pleading with the Lord my God for Jerusalem, his holy mountain. ²¹ As I was praying, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision, came swiftly to me at the time of the evening sacrifice. ²² He explained to me, “Daniel, I have come here to give you insight and understanding. ²³ The moment you began praying, a command was given. And now I am here to tell you what it was, for you are very precious to God. Listen carefully so that you can understand the meaning of your vision. (NLT)

The part I really noticed was how God felt about Daniel.  "for you are very precious to God".  The creator of the universe, the King of Kings, the Ancient One is known in heaven to care very dearly about Daniel.  This is the same King of Kings that Daniel has a glimpse of a few chapters before as He sits as judge on His throne of blazing fire, with millions upon millions ministering to and attending Him.

In verses as basic as John 3:16 we see that God loves us too.  In fact, He loves us so much He gave everything to give us the chance to be saved from the situation we've gotten ourselves into.  Jesus tells us that God knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows the number of hairs on our heads (let alone simple things like our names).  He values us and longs for us to be restored to fellowship with Him.

And yet He has also made what must be one of the most difficult choices of all, and that is to let us go.  I'm sure you have heard the saying, "If you love something, let it go."  Well, that's exactly what God did for us.  He loved us so much that he let us go.  He gave us the chance to make our own decision about Him, without pressuring us or forcing us into something, He gave us the chance to make up our own minds and choose to accept or reject Him.