A “love calculator” can be found on the Internet. As strange as it may sound, all you’re instructed to do once you’re on the website is to key in your name and the name of the person you’re interested in, and the love meter calculates your “love percentage”—supposedly revealing your chances of a successful romantic relationship. I wonder how many have naïvely tried to find true love using this website!
God doesn’t leave us second-guessing how much He loves us. The Bible speaks of God’s love being demonstrated by His generous gift of His Son—solid proof that He loves us (John 3:16). In fact, we “know what real love is” only “because Jesus gave up his life for us” (1 John 3:16). His willing death demonstrated the enormity and intensity of that affection (Romans 5:6-8) and revealed God’s heart: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love . . . that he loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).
No one compelled Jesus to die. Three times He said He willingly died for us (John 10:11,15,18). Paul said that “God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. . . . Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood” (Romans 3:25). Because His death was divinely authored, it’s not a meaningless tragedy. He purposefully died for us, taking our sin and its consequences on Himself (Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21).
Because “all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18), we need never doubt His love. The cross of Jesus is God’s love meter. And it shows we’re greatly loved beyond measure.