God Actually LIKES You
A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I’ve always loved that quote. It emphasizes the importance of sound doctrine. It reminds us that we can’t simply make up our own God, but must worship and serve the one true God as He’s revealed Himself in His Word.
Yet, as important as our thoughts about God are, God’s thoughts about us are exponentially more important. To this end C.S. Lewis wrote,
“I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall ‘stand before’ Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son - it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”
C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory
I find that Christians have a theoretical understanding that because of Christ’s work in their place, God loves them. What many of us struggle to conceive of functionally is the fact that God likes us.
Psalm 147:11 says, “The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.”
Let that sink in for a second. God not only loves you, He actually likes you - the God of the universe takes pleasure in you. All the emphasis on self-help, self-esteem, in our culture is a like steaming pile compared with that reality.
It’s important that we think rightly about God. But, it’s most important that we think rightly about how God thinks about us.
