If you’re just now jumping in on this series, the passage that we’re discussing to discover our identity is found in Matthew 3:17. In this passage God speaks to Jesus and says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” In the last post we looked at how God now calls us his sons and daughters because of the price that Jesus paid for us. We are not automatically born into the family of God but only when we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior. So God starts off by saying, “This is my Son…” and he moves on to say, “whom I love.” “Whom I love…..” God loves you. How do you know that God loves you? He paid the ultimate price for you by sending his Son to die for you.

The word for love here is the Greek word agapetos and it means, “beloved, esteemed, dear, favourite, worthy of love.” The love of God for us is measureless. You could spend the rest of your life meditating on God’s love for you and not scratch the surface. I love what Paul said in Ephesians 3:17-19:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

The only way that we can know a love that surpasses knowledge is through the revelation that can only come from God. It is critical to our understanding of our identity to know that we are loved. When Jesus spread his hands out on the cross  he showed us how wide his love is. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” God couldn’t love you anymore than he currently does. It’s crazy to me that God would love us in the same way that he loves Jesus but he does. This truth ought to inspire gratitude in our hearts.

We’ll discuss the next element of identity in Part 5 of this series.