In “God’s Love: The Most Joyous to the Soul“, Sister Susan Porter asks two questions. “Do you know how completely God, our Heavenly Father loves you?” and “Have you felt His love deep in your soul?”. That got me thinking, “How do I know God loves me?”

The First Great Truth

Part of the answer is something Elder Holland has affirmed. “The first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength.”

Where in my life have I felt that? In a previous post, I discuss the feeling I had when the missionaries were teaching us the gospel. It was the love of God expressed to me.

A second example was when I was a teenager at a Latter-day Saint-sponsored Boy Scout Jamboree. It was held near the Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York. The keynote speaker for the Jamboree was President Ezra Taft Benson and the address was given at the Hill Cumorah. It was a bright, hot, humid, sunny day and the address was given outside. The organizers had rigged up a tarp above President Benson to provide some shade from the sun. He began his address but quickly turned to the leaders present and said that he couldn’t read his talk. The tarp was blocking the light and it was too dark for him.

One of the leaders stood on a chair and with his pocket knife cut a square hole in the tarp above the podium. This allowed light to be over whoever was speaking but kept everyone else shaded.

So here’s the scenario. You have a prophet of God speaking at the Hill Cumorah with a pillar of light shining down on him. Sound familiar? At that moment I felt God’s love deep in my soul.

Nephi’s Understanding

Sister Porter relates the story in the Book of Mormon where the prophet Nephi wants the interpretation of his father’s vision of the Tree of Life. She states:

The prophet Nephi was shown in a vision the most powerful evidence of God’s love. Upon viewing the tree of life, Nephi asked to know the interpretation thereof. In answer, an angel showed Nephi a city, a mother, and a baby. As Nephi looked upon the city of Nazareth and the righteous mother Mary, holding the infant Jesus in her arms, the angel declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!”

At that sacred moment, Nephi understood that in the birth of the Savior, God was showing forth His pure and complete love. God’s love, Nephi testified, “sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men.”

“God’s Love: The Most Joyous to the Soul” – Sister Susan H. Porter

I was hit hard by the statement “At that sacred moment, Nephi understood that in the birth of the Savior, God was showing forth His pure and complete love.” I had always thought of God’s love in terms of the Savior’s life, teachings, atonement, and resurrection, but not His birth. How hard must it have been for God to send His only begotten Son to the earth? What emotions and feelings did He have at that moment seeing Jesus born to Mary? That moment was the beginning of God’s ultimate example of His love for us.

God Shows His Love By Answering Prayers

We are encouraged to ask questions of God. We are promised that if we ask in faith, He will give us answers (James 1:5). This is how Joseph Smith received the First Vision. It is how I gained my testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s church on the earth. It is how President Nelson knows to lead the church in this day. As Sister Porter states “God’s love is not found in the circumstances of our lives but in His presence in our lives.

Conclusion

Through personal experience I know not only that God loves me, but how deep that love is. What’s most amazing is that He has that same depth of love for every one of His children. Every. One. Of. His. Children. To quote the Beatles “With a love like that, you know you should be glad.”