Does God Still Love Me? Here’s the Simple Truth So You’ll Never Doubt Again

Inside: After all I’ve done and everyone who’s rejected me, does God still love me? Here’s the answer you need to put your doubts to rest forever.

Looking back now, I can see the compassion on his face as he smiled at me from across the expanse of his desk. But in the moment, I was so excited, I never saw the blow coming.

“We can’t accept your application.”

My excitement died a swift death as I stared at him in shock. I was a shoo-in for membership at this church, so surely I’d heard him wrong.

I’d been a regular in those pews for several years, I’d volunteered in a couple of ministries, and I’d donated to various ongoing funds. I believed in this church’s mission and ministry and in Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Plus, I was a baptized Christian—not through this church, but still—and I read my Bible almost every day!

All of which was why I sat stupefied for long seconds before I found my voice.

“But why?” I just managed to croak out the words around the lump forming in my rapidly closing throat. The unexpected rejection cut deep but I needed to know.

It came down to one reason, he said. I was living with a man to whom I wasn’t married. And the church wouldn’t accept me until I remedied the situation.

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My Story of Hurt and Doubt about God’s Love

The meeting ended quickly after that. He’d said what he needed to say and I was hanging on to my composure by a thread. I needed to get out of there before the breakdown hit. It was coming, I could tell.

I felt filthy and unworthy as I hurried away from his office. These good people—even in my pain, I still knew they were good people—had judged me and I’d fallen short. I could almost feel the scarlet letter forming on my chest.

Related: How to Stop Feeling Unworthy, Know Your Value & Secure an Eternity of Joy

I speed-walked across the parking lot with tears burning the back of my eyes. I kept my head down the entire way, too embarrassed to make eye contact with anyone. All the while, I processed this unexpected outcome.

Moments later as I sat in my car, I let the searing pain lance through me. My body heaved with gasping sobs as rejection, shame, and heartbreak darn near suffocated me.

I’d thought God had said I should come to Him as I was. They—His body, His church—had said so as they’d invited me to the altar. But when I came, they said I was not good enough. They said I had to clean myself up first.

I don’t know how long I sobbed in my car, my head resting on the steering wheel and I poured out my pain. But I know it was the first time the question whispered across my mind.

Does God still love me, even though they can’t?

Does God Still Love Me? Your Story of Hurt and Doubt

Maybe you also have a church-hurt story making you wonder if God still loves you. Or maybe it’s not about church hurt at all.

Maybe you’ve been crying out to Him in desperation for years, begging Him for rescue or for answers to what makes you happy. And for years, you’ve been left wondering why God is silent in your life and thinking, “If God still loves me, surely He’d have answered me by now.”

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

Psalm 22:1-2 (NLT)

Or maybe it’s because of your low-level, simmering guilt over known sin in your life. So low-level, you may not even acknowledge it. But, like a sliver stuck under your skin, it niggles at you because you know it displeases God. Still, your desire to please yourself and others is bigger than your desire to please Him, and you don’t want to stop.

For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

John 12:43 (ESV)

Whatever the reason for your doubt, it all feels like too much water under the bridge for Him to still love you. Sure, you believe He loves everyone as a general principle. But you specifically? No way.

So the question tickles your mind every so often, as it did mine: Does God still love me?

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free printable download—Your Faith & Trust Reboot. It gives you 5 simple tweaks to power up your prayers so you can triumph over doubt and fear.

But First, a Warning

As you can guess by now, I don’t blame you for wondering if God still loves you. I used to wonder the same thing for both church-hurt and non-church-hurt reasons.

And probably, like me, you want to believe God still loves you, despite what surface evidence seems to suggest.

But here’s your mistake: You’re trying to squeeze our incomprehensible God into a human-sized box.

This is understandable too, because your experience has taught you one truth—people can love you more or love you less depending on who you are to them.

For example, your family loves you because you’re blood and they have to. And your friends and partner love you because they’re attracted to your positive traits.

This means the moment you hurt one of your loved ones or step out of line with them, they often put up a wall between you and them and withdraw their affection.

I’m not pointing fingers or casting blame because every human being does the same, you and me included.

So while you love each other to the best of your ability, that ability is so far from perfect, it’s in a whole other universe.

But not so our God.

You’ll never get Him to fit in the human-sized box you’re trying to cram Him into. And you’re only hurting yourself by trying.

Does God Still Love Me When People Don’t?

You’re carrying around a lifetime of hurt, believing that if others think you’re not good enough or unworthy, then surely God must think so too. Especially when those people are supposed to love you the most and appreciate you no matter what. Worse when those people are from your church or live in your home.

My darling, hear me now. God never stops loving you, even when people do.

Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.

Psalm 27:10 (NLT)

The opposite is also true. Even if the people in your life love you to pieces and always have your back, their love can never compare to God’s epic, unending, unfathomable love for you.

But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

Romans 5:8 (MSG)

The bottom line: Don’t measure God’s love for you based on people’s ability to love you. There’s no comparison.

Does God Still Love Me after I Sin?

What about your deliberate, known sin. Does God still love you even if you don’t give it up?

My darling, hear me now. Your sin grieves God and He’s never going to condone your sinful decisions. He’s our holy and just God, and He’ll never be OK with any kind of sin. Plus, He always wants the best for you, and a lifestyle that goes against His holy plan for you isn’t ever going to be the best.

Related: Does God Love Me despite My Sins? Simple Bible Advice You Need to Know

But your sin doesn’t make God love you any less than He already does. Just as your numerous good deeds don’t make Him love you any more than He already does. This is because God’s love for you doesn’t depend on your actions…at all.

For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 (AMPC)

The bottom line: God will never be OK with your sin, but your sin doesn’t make Him love you any less.

If God Still Loves Me, Why Is He Silent?

I can hear you asking, “What about when He doesn’t answer my prayers? Does God still love me then?”

First, God hears your prayers, always. And He answers every single one of them. But you may be missing signs God is speaking to you. Or you may be ignoring His answer because it’s not the one you want. Or maybe you’re doing all the talking and none of the listening so you’re not hearing God’s voice.

Second, God may not respond the way you want or within the time you want. But this doesn’t mean God doesn’t love you. It simply means He happens to see, know, and understand far more than you ever can.

Our Lord is great, with limitless strength; we’ll never comprehend what he knows and does.

Psalm 147:5 (MSG)

The bottom line: Just because you’re not getting the answer you want in the time you want, this doesn’t mean God doesn’t love you. It just means you’re judging Him according to your human understanding.

Bible Verses about the Love of God

The best place to turn when you’re wondering, “Does God still love me?” is to His word. Start with Bible verses about the characteristics of God’s love, like these.

The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth. Exodus 34:6 (CSB)

Lord, your faithful love reaches to heaven, your faithfulness to the clouds. Psalm 36:5 (CSB)

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. Psalm 103:11 (CSB)

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 (CSB)

Here’s what you learn about God’s love from these verses:

• His love is faithful and comes from a place of compassion and grace.
• God’s love is limitless and infinite.
• God enjoys when we worship Him with awe-filled reverence, simply because He’s almighty God.
• God is the source of love. We only love God, ourselves, and others because of His love in the first place.

Next, dig into verses about trusting God’s love more than you trust your fickle feelings.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! Ephesians 2:4-5 (CSB)

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 1 John 4:9 (CSB)

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (CSB)

Bible Verses about God’s Love in Action

Love is a word. But even more important, love is a decision demonstrated through actions. Like God showing His unconditional love for you by sending Jesus to die for your sins.

These Bible verses show how the love of God looks when you let Him act in your life.

This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. John 15:12-13 (CSB)

Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! Lamentations 3:22-23 (CSB)

But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:4-5 (CSB)

Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline; for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights. Proverbs 3:11-12 (CSB)

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 (CSB)

The truth is, you’re the only one who can stand in the way of God’s love working in your life. And even if you are, God’s still waiting for you to allow His love to lead you.

God Still Loves You, No Matter What

Years after I walked away from the membership pastor’s office, heartbroken, rejected, and feeling filthy, I became a member of that same church.

Not because I’d walked away from my toxic live-in relationship, and not because I’d cleaned up my life. Although I admit, by then I’d done both of those things.

It was because I finally understood the truth—they couldn’t condone my willful sin. They loved me as their sister in Christ which meant they wanted God’s best for me, and the life I was living wasn’t it.

These days, when I think back to that defining moment of rejection, I don’t feel pain. Instead, I feel gratitude and love because I see things differently now.

Instead of judgment, now I see their love in telling me the truth when others close to me didn’t. And God’s love in using them as a mouthpiece to share the truth I’d known and ignored all along.

Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

John 8:10-11 (NLT)

As for you, you can stop asking yourself and Google, “Does God still love me?” The answer is yes, God still loves you. He always has and He always will. And He does it without limits or conditions, always.

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