When Does the Lord Begin to Love Me?

1 hour ago

6 min read

By: Kelly Byrley

Psalm 139:13-18 “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.”

Before you were created, the Lord loved you. Before you were born, the Lord knew you. When no one else could see you in the womb, the Lord saw you, He knew you, and He loved you because He created you there. This is very clear in Psalm 139. We also see this in Job. “Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about;” Job10:8. God made us, each of us, uniquely and wonderfully with His own hands! Have you ever considered that God made you with His own hands? What a beautiful thought!

Not only did He make us, but He made us for a reason! “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Jeremiah 1:4-5. God knew the purpose He had for Jeremiah before he was even created. The Lord formed him in the womb, and He sanctified and ordained him before he was born. You can’t be sanctified and ordained unless you exist. Jeremiah clearly existed inside the womb.

The world calls an unborn child an “embryo, a zygote, a fetus, a clump of cells, a nucleus,” and so on. They use many words that sound clinical and detached. They do this because they do not want to call it an unborn child or a baby. Calling it an unborn child or a baby instantly sounds more emotional. You feel an attachment. Those words have value. The world does not want to use these words because the world does not give value to life in the womb, but the Lord very clearly does! We just read a few verses that make it very clear that life exists inside the womb, but there are many, many more. I won’t list them all for the sake of space, but I’ll give you some of the references and the generality of what is mentioned:

Genesis 25
Judges 13
Multiple chapters and verses in Isaiah, Acts, and Galatians
Luke 1 & 2.

These all mention specific people by name and their calling or purpose for their life from the womb. How can your life have purpose before you are born if you are just a clump of cells?

Ecclesiastes and Isaiah mention being formed in the womb. Jeremiah and Job both mention being in the womb and being formed in the womb multiple times throughout their books. In addition, both of these men were facing difficulties. Job was facing the trial of his life. Jeremiah was preaching his heart out to a nation who were not listening. Throughout both of these books, these men were so discouraged that they said that they wished they had died in the womb. How can you die if you have no life? Multiple chapters in Psalms, as well as Isaiah, Hosea, Luke, and Acts all talk about characteristics from the womb. How can you have personality traits from the womb if you’re not a human life?

How can we be so sure God has a purpose and a plan for us? Because He says so in His Word. ”For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11. This tells us that God’s thoughts toward us are good. We weren’t just randomly created and left without any guidance or purpose. Our life isn’t meaningless or worthless. He has a path that He wants us to take. He has a specific role He wants us to fulfill. He has a place He expects us to end up at. This is a good, peaceful place. There is no peace in confusion, wandering around, and living life without a purpose. God has an expectation and plan for our lives.

We are precious to Him. “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Jeremiah 31:3. He loves us with an everlasting love! His love will never stop. He draws us to Himself with His lovingkindness! He also rejoices over us. “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17. What a sweet portrayal of the love and joy God has for us! We bring Him joy. How could we do that if we have no purpose or meaning to our life?

So how can we read verses like these and still doubt God’s love for us or His plan for our lives? Actually, it’s very easy to doubt when you listen to what the world has to say instead of what God has to say. It’s very easy to doubt when you are taught that life has no value in the womb. When you are taught that an unborn child is just a clump of cells, it has no value or purpose in your mind. It’s just easier to feel like you are not loved if you don’t view the value of life as God does. When you are taught that you evolved from a monkey instead of being created by a loving God who made you for a specific reason, it’s so much easier to feel like you are worthless and that your life has no meaning. It’s easy to believe that no one loves you unconditionally, and it’s easy to feel forsaken and unworthy when you fail to understand that God lovingly formed you by hand.

Unfortunately, when you fail to view life as God does, it becomes easier for you to do the same things to others. It’s easier for us to forsake and forget others. It’s easier for us to treat people as worthless. It’s easier for us not to value life as precious. Look around the world and you can see that people as a whole do not value life. We probably all have a story to tell regarding being forsaken or forgotten or of feeling unloved or unworthy. It’s so easy to forsake and feel forsaken when we do not look at life from God’s perspective! “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” I John 4:8. If we do not know God, we cannot love like Him.

These next verses are so sad to think about, but we can also clearly see just how much the Lord values us! “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Isaiah 49:15. “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.” Psalm 27:10. Even if our own family forsakes us, forgets us, or abandons us, the Lord will not! In fact, we are so precious and valuable to Him that He sent his own Son to die for us.

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. He died for us knowing just how sinful we are. He knew this even before He created us, and Christ knew it before He died for us. Yet, He did it anyway, and He did it because He loves us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Just like I mentioned earlier that the Lord has an expected end to our life, the place where He wants us to end up in our life, He also has an expected place for us for eternity. But we can only get there if we are saved. Salvation is so easy for us. Christ did the hard part. We just need to believe that we are sinners and that because of our sin we deserve judgment.

Judgement is eternity in Hell, but Hell wasn’t created for the Lord, and He doesn’t want us to go there. That’s why He sent His Only Son to die on the cross to pay the cost of that judgement for our sins. We just need to repent and believe that Jesus is the only way to an eternity in Heaven. I truly hope the Lord showed you just how valuable and precious your life and the lives of others are to Him. I also pray that you now realize, if you did not already, that He loves you more than anything, He formed you and gave you life in the womb, that you have a specific, meaningful purpose for your life, and that He wants you to spend eternity with Him!