“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you” (John 15:9)

In the same ways the Father loves the Son, Christ loves His people. What are those ways?

 “You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). The Father loved Christ from eternity, before time as we know it, without beginning or end, and in the same way, Christ loves His saints. You can trace the beginning of your love to Christ, but His love to you is a stream that existed in eternity, which is confirmed by the fact your name was “written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). 

 “My kindness shall not depart from you” (Isaiah 54:10). The Father’s love for Christ is unchanged for eternity. Take comfort in knowing that although your love for Christ changes whenever you lose faith that God is in control, nothing can separate you “from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). 

 “That the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26). There’s a great revelation in Christ’s love. Saint Augustine said if God is love, then there must a Lover and a Beloved in the Trinity. Christ brought you into that eternal love relationship. “The fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ ... made known by the church ... according to the eternal purpose” (Ephesians 3:9-11). Saints who are in Christ are “rooted and grounded in love ... to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19).