For the LORD takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation.

Psalms 149:4, NIV

I think one of the hardest things for us to wrap our minds around is that God truly does love us. We know the verse by heart that states, "For God so loved the world", but we still have difficulty in fully believing it. And it's not because the gift of His one and only Son is not enough to prove that love, for it clearly is, so what is the problem? Why are there so many of us who have difficulty in believing that God really and truly loves us?

Maybe it's because we spend so much time on the negative side of the equation. We know that God will punish the wicked and we have been wicked. So for a lot of us, we simply spend so much time fearing the punishment that we get the idea that God is somehow out to get us. And in our experience, anyone who is out to get us isn't doing so out of love.

The thing we miss is that while God really will punish the guilty, that punishment is only for those who remain in that guilt. He has made it very clear within His Word that there is a way to remove our sin and, therefore, our guilt along with it. He has told us if we will repent of our sins, have those sins washed away, and then do our best to walk in His light, that we will be saved. And Jesus died on the cross to justify us in this salvation, having taken the guilt of our sins away by paying the penalty for those sins on the cross.

Once we grasp these things, it will change our lives. We know that we don't deserve to have our sins removed (this is where the humility comes in, in the verse above) but our sins have indeed been removed. And though we will sin again and again, if we will just keep walking in the light and repenting when we do find ourselves in sin, then God will really forgive us.

And, He will take delight in us!

I think maybe this is the hardest fact of all for us to understand, but it is true. It's like when you have a child that has done something bad that they knew going into it that it was bad, but they did it anyway. But then, instead of compounding their error, their conscience got the best of them and they ceased their bad behavior and told you how sorry they were. And you were so glad that they had come to their senses that you were overwhelmed by your sense of love for them that you hugged them tight and let them know that it was okay, that you forgave them. And you not only did that, but you then looked for ways that you could help them to continue to do the right thing. This process, by the way, works well for the four year old, the teenager, and the twenty five year old.

Now, think about the One who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for our sins. Add that to the fact those who truly repent of their sins will then accept His terms for living and we will then begin to understand one of the most amazing parts of this verse: He delights in us! Just as you and I had parents who delighted in us when we did the right thing, and just as it now delights us as parents when our kids do the right thing, God really does delight in us. And He does so because He has always been on our side, even when we weren't on His. In a large part, it is because God does delight in us so that He is willing to save His children who humbly return to Him in repentance when they do wrong.

And then, life becomes wonderful! It is wonderful because we now realize that God is not looking to squash us like a bug when we sin; rather, He is looking to provide us with all the help we need to come back and live for Him. It is when we realize that God is rooting for us, not against us, that we can then begin to live the life that He designed us to live. It is a good life filled with wonder and joy for those who will humbly accept His terms of salvation. It is so because God not only loves us so much, but also because He takes delight in those who will love Him back. 

The only question that remains for those who desire a fulfilling life is this: Do we truly love Him?