How Much Does the Father Love You?

October 22, 2026

John 19 does not explain the love of God. It shows it. Jesus is flogged. Soldiers twist a crown of thorns and press it onto His head. They dress Him in a purple robe and strike Him. The crowd shouts, “Crucify him.” His own people say, “We have no king but Caesar.” He carries His cross, is nailed to it, and dies while people taunt Him. If we ask how much God loves us, John 19 is the answer. The Father gave the Son. The Son stayed on the cross.

The harder question is why that love is so difficult to receive in ordinary life. We can say the words and still live as if God is distant, disappointed, or keeping score. Part of the reason is that we try to understand the Father through earthly parents. If a father was harsh, absent, or impossible to please, we often expect God to be the same. If a mother withheld affection, we may assume God withholds it too. We also bring our own flaws into the relationship. We avoid honest conflict and call it peace. We bury what we feel. We stay busy with work for God and call it devotion, when sometimes it is a way of running from Him. We live as if we have no limits, then wonder why we cannot rest in His love.

A different way to begin is closer to home. Think of how you love your own children, or how you longed to be loved as a child. Multiply that by a love that does not fail, does not keep a record of wrongs, and does not turn away at the cross. That is still only a glimpse. God does not love us as a disappointed parent loves a difficult project. He loves us as sons and daughters. At the cross, three Roman nails did not hold Jesus’ there. It was God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ, that stayed on the cross by choice, until the work was done. And then Jesus declared it so as He spoke into eternity, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Scripture keeps returning to the same invitation, and it is more specific than we often hear. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). The promise is not that God is hard to find. The promise is that He is found by the person who stops holding part of the heart back. Deuteronomy 4:29 says the same thing another way: if you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. Jesus named it the greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). More than a hundred verses say some form of this. Seeking God is not a mood. It is a direction for the whole person.

That is why we do not stumble into the love of the Father by accident. A partial search gets a partial picture. We come to Him with the wounds we received, the harsh word, the absence, the parent we could never please, and we also come with the wounds we caused. We tell Him the truth about both. Then we stop trying to earn what He has already given. The cross in John 19 is not a wage we work up to. It is the proof that the Father has already loved us. Seeking Him with all your heart means you stop managing the hard parts alone. You bring them to Him and let Him be Father there.

How much does the cross tell you God loves you? Has an earthly parent made it harder to trust the heavenly Father? Do you seek Him with all your heart, even when your heart is flawed, or do you only seek Him on your best behavior? What part of your heart have you kept back from that search? What would it look like this week to seek Him with that part too, not only with the part that already behaves?

I invite you to look again at John 19 and let it correct the picture. The Father loved the Son before the world began, and He loves you with that same love. The Son bore the whip, the thorns, the robe, and the nails so that love would not stay a theory. When we receive it, the name of Jesus is lifted high. (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional. Check out my podcast on YouTube, called “My Faith Journey”).