Is the Bible God's Love Letter to Us?

Is the Bible God’s love letter to us? The Bible is full of God’s passionate, heaven-rending, earth-shattering, soul-saving love. The love of The Creator for His creation. The love of The Shepherd for His sheep. The love of The Father for His children. Divine love. Eternal love. Agape Love. This epic love letter sweeps across time, demolishes strongholds, and woos God’s loved ones back to Him. The Bible is indeed God’s love letter to us.

I love reading the Bible. I am constantly delighted and surprised by what I read and learn each day. And even though I have read the Bible, God’s love letter, through several times, there is always something new and fresh about it. It is full of old and new treasure.

Finding the Right Bible Translation

I grew up hearing the Bible read and preached from the King James Version. The words were always awkward to my ears. The only times that I ever heard anyone say “thou” or “shalt” or “maketh” was on Sundays and occasionally in school.

I knew that other translations of the Bible existed because my mother had a version called The Living Bible. This book was created by updating the language of another Bible edition, the American Standard Version of 1901 (the forerunner of the KJV) into modern English. So, it was a translation of a translation.

A while before I began to read the Bible on my own, a co-worker told me that the Bible had other translations. These versions had been translated directly from the same manuscripts that were used to compose the KJV. The one that she said she highly recommended was the New International Version. I was intrigued enough to buy a copy of the NIV, but a few years passed before I actually read it.

Falling in Love with God’s Word

But when I did read the NIV, I fell in love. I loved that I could understand the words plainly and didn’t feel like I was dissecting a Shakespearean play. I loved that I could read at a normal pace like I did when I read a novel. And I began to fall in love with God’s Word because I could finally connect with the words.

However, falling in love with God’s Word didn’t mean that I understood it. I must confess that I didn’t retain what I read in the Bible like I could the fluff that I consumed in books of fiction. It was weird. When reading fiction, I could recount storyline, hero, heroine, plot, and quote lines. But I would read the Bible and could not recall much of what I had read. Or I would get so drowsy that I fell asleep after a few passages.

Rather than deter me from reading this book, it intrigued me and challenged me: What was it about the Bible that, even though it was now in plain English, made me feel like I was reading words that somehow remained foreign? Why could I consume a 300-page novel in a day but could not read more than 2 pages in the Bible without nodding off or feeling like my head was being squeezed?

A Hunger to Know God

I persisted in reading because it awakened a hunger in me to know God. The more I read, the more questions I had. What had I accepted as truth about him from all the preaching and teaching that I grew up under? Was God still active in the lives of people today? What did it mean to “know” God and have a relationship with Him?

I noticed some changes in myself that intrigued me. My thoughts and feelings were changing. It was like I was becoming aware of words, music, my own thoughts, the visual world around me. Things that were my “normal” began to cause me to pause and consider whether they were in alignment with what I had read in the Bible. It was like my senses switched on and I could hear and see differently. And I realized that something profound was happening on the inside.

Beginning to Understand God’s Love

The more I read God’s love letter, the more I began to see a picture of God developing. I began to see His heart. I was beginning to understand God’s love for me, for us all.

I grew up under the Southern Baptist denomination. What I learned about God from the preaching and teaching went something like “thou shalt not” do a whole list of things because if “thou didst” “thou wast going to burneth in hell for eternity.”

But as I read the Bible, I learned that there was so much more to God than what had been preached or taught to me. God is love and the Bible is God’s love letter to us. He has revealed Himself to mankind in so many ways and He has opened the way for us to have a relationship with Him. I began to understand love for the first time.

Love in the Natural World

My early impressions of love had been shaped by love in the natural world. I had experienced the love of my family and the love of my community. And I had read a bunch of romance novels.

I took my family’s love for granted because it was just there. We loved each other true enough. But I figured we had to love each other because that was just a normal part of being family .

The love of my community was a bit less tangible. I grew up among people who knew me and accepted me. But I could have just as well been a tree that was native to the soil in which it grew. There was no real attempt to nurture my growth; but they didn’t cut me down either.

Now romance novels—oh my! This was the kind of love that made me feel something. I wanted the vapors, the heart palpitations, the emotional high and physical ecstasy. That’s what I believed was love! This was the love that seemed most real when I thought of love.

Love in The Spirit of God

But love in the Spirit of God looked entirely different from the stuff in romance novels. I say “looked” because, at first, I didn’t feel His love. And I began to realize that I didn’t really know what love felt like. I began to hunger for something I couldn’t identify. I started comparing the love that was familiar to me with God’s love as it was being revealed to me.

The Revelation of God’s Love

The revelation of God’s love caused me to question: Was I loving? Did I know how to love? Did I know what love felt like from anyone? Did the people who said they loved me really know what love was?

God’s love letter, the Bible, revealed some amazing things.

If you love someone, you seek them out. You want to spend time getting to know them. And you want them to get to know you.
The sound of your loved one’s voice is distinctive. You want to hear them speak and you recognize their voice even in a crowd of other voices.
Learning what pleases the one you love is important. You want to know what their favorite activity is. You want to know what makes them smile. You want their eyes to light up when they see you. You want them to think highly of you.
Just as important as knowing what pleases the one you love is knowing what displeases them. What would break their heart? What makes them angry? What causes them to turn away from you? What is the ultimate deal breaker that could destroy your relationship?
You respect, cherish, value, and protect your love. It is sacred and more precious than anything or anyone else. And you do not want that love to be compromised or jeopardized.
You will give anything to your loved one and you will give up everything for the one you love.

God Has Poured out His Heart to Mankind

As I read the Bible, God’s love letter, I saw that God has poured out His heart to mankind. Throughout the Bible, God saved, guided, protected, and rebuked. He taught, disciplined, forgave. He showed mercy, grace, and love. He held out His hands and opened His arms. He provided examples to follow and examples to avoid. He made promises, revealed His plans, and brought His promises to fulfillment. Throughout the entire Bible, God has poured out his heart. He has revealed, offered, and proved His loved.

Falling in Love with God

God took everything that I thought I knew about love and completely obliterated it. He showed me His love. And then He caused me to feel it. He poured His love into me and through me and out of me. I have fallen in love with God. I keep falling. I cannot get enough.

This loving God has made known His promises that are yet to be fulfilled. His love will conquer all. He will be victorious. He will restore paradise. God’s children will come home to Him. And we will love and be loved like we can’t even comprehend. We will be united as family. Our loving Father and His children under one love, the only love.

The Bible is God’s love letter to us. This love letter is like nothing else ever written. It’s universal and personal at the same time. I feel my Father’s love every time I read it. I fall in love with Him with each new revelation. I cannot wait to meet Him and see Him face to face. And I eagerly await being overwhelmed by His love and basking in it for eternity.

I keep on falling in love with God. Deeper and deeper and deeper…

God’s Letter to His Beloved

Parable of the Cake – Remaining Faithful to God’s Word

Power of Prayer: Parable of the Cake

Agape Love: Parable of the Cake

Soul Food: Parable of the Cake

Set Free from Cursing — Deliverance from Spiritual Bondage

Which Bible Translation Is Right for You?

Journaling: Expressing Your Heart Through Your Pen