God Loves You, But Does God Like You?

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing’” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV).

Many of us grew up singing, “Jesus Loves Me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” in Sunday School. But have you ever wondered if God likes you?

We all have people we love whom we don’t always like. For example, we love our family members and would come to their aid in an emergency, but holidays can be tricky because we may love them but don't always want to spend time with them.

Well, that’s not the way it is with God. God likes you and takes delight in you.

Merriam-Webster defines delight as a high degree of gratification or pleasure: joy, extreme satisfaction, something that gives great pleasure.

In Psalm 147:11, we read, “…but He takes pleasure in those who honor him, in those who trust in his constant love” (GNT). When you’re in a relationship with God, God gets pleasure from being with you. God likes you. God gets extreme satisfaction from you. You are a joy to God. God wants to be with you. God wants to talk to you. God is excited to be with you. He even wants to spend the holidays with you.

What would be different in your life if you knew God loved you and liked you? Would it change the view you have of yourself when you know God values and delights in you?

Would you talk to yourself differently? Some of us say things to ourselves and about ourselves that we would never say to someone else, which is definitely not what God says about us. If someone says something negative about someone I love, such as my husband or my children, it really upsets me. I wonder how it makes God feel when we devalue something He finds so invaluable. We need to align what we say about ourselves with the truth of what God says about us.

Would you make better choices if you knew God loved and liked you? We live in a culture that constantly points out our imperfections and tells us we need to lose weight or look a certain way to be liked and accepted. This culture says you aren’t acceptable if you don’t drive this car, live in this type of place, or make this amount of money. You have to do this or do that if you want to feel loved. Would knowing God likes you make you stop looking to the cultures or other people’s ideas of what makes you valuable? Would you be able to reject the lies told to make you feel like you are not enough? Whose opinion are you going to listen to, and whose standard are you going to live by? The culture's standard or God's?

Buying into those lies because we don’t know or even consider the idea that God likes us can lead us down a dark path. When God likes you, you are already acceptable and valuable. Let’s believe it and leave the world’s lies behind.

God repeatedly tells us in the Word how He sees us and loves us. Read it. Soak it in. It’s God’s love letter to you. Here are some verses to reflect on as you pay for God to reaffirm that He takes delight in, loves, and LIKES you.

John 3:16-18

Romans 5:8-11

Psalm 36:7-9

Jeremiah 31:3

Romans 8:37-39