How can we experience God's love?

The Meaning of God’s Love and Why It Is Not Merely a Feeling

So, how can we experience God's love? This is a difficult question to answer because it deals with subjective experiences. Nevertheless, we can try and answer it. Generally speaking, love is understood to be a feeling of euphoria, a feeling of some sort of good, something that brings you into a state of well-being, a sensation of comfort.

However, biblically, love is the concern and action that seeks the best for others. John 3 .16 says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.

Notice that it says that God's love gives. That's the nature of love, to give. It is other-focused, other-centered. So, in order to experience God's love, we should not look to a feeling, but to that which fits the best description of the other-centeredness that God declares in His Word.

Experiencing God’s Love Through Christ’s Sacrifice

In Christianity, the greatest example of the experience of God's love is in the person of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. God loves us so much that He took our place on the cross and died for us.

Jesus said in John 15 .13 that the greatest act of love is to lay your life down for another. This is exactly what Jesus did for us. So, to experience God's love is, first of all, to trust Him by faith, to trust in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross on our behalf.

By trusting in Jesus, by looking to Jesus alone for the forgiveness of your sins through His death, burial, and resurrection, you can then receive the forgiveness of God and experience His love for you.

Experiencing God’s Presence and Being Convicted of Sin

There is, however, another way of experiencing God's love. All across the world, Christians have had times when they have sensed this presence of God in a very real and powerful way. Since God is love, to experience His presence is to experience His love.

This experience is often very humbling and serves to reveal one's own sinful nature to himself. When we are in the presence of love, in the presence of God's holiness, we are, as the scripture says, undone and we see ourselves as we really are.

This is an enigmatic experience because it both brings us to tears and also engulfs us in His divine presence and love. This is not a very common experience, but it does happen, and it does happen to Christians around the world regularly.

Looking to Jesus First

God is real. God is concerned with you and He wants you to experience Him, but you must first begin with the person of Jesus Christ. If you don't experience Jesus, you really cannot experience the love of God.

Look to Jesus first.