I Have Loved You

Hello my dear friends,

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and settle in with me for a few minutes. I want us to sit together with the opening words of Malachi—words that feel like a gentle hand on the shoulder when our hearts are tired and questioning. Here’s the text: The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”

Malachi begins with a burdened word—an oracle—and the very first thing the Lord wants His people to hear is simply this: “I have loved you.” Not a past tense that has faded. Not a future promise dangling out of reach. Just the steady, present declaration of covenant love. Yet their reply is so honest it almost hurts: “How have you loved us?”

You can hear the weariness in it. They had come home from exile. The temple stood again. But life still felt thin. Harvests disappointed. Neighbors still threatened. The grand promises seemed slow in arriving. So they looked around at their ordinary, unfinished days and quietly wondered if the love had cooled.

The Lord’s answer doesn’t start with a list of recent blessings. He takes them further back—to something older and freer. “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” Of course he was. Twins. Equal by birth. Yet God set His affection on Jacob and passed over Esau.

This isn’t cold favoritism; it is the free, electing love that has always marked the way of grace. And the evidence was still visible in their day: Edom’s hills lay in ruins while Israel, small and imperfect, remained the people of God’s promise. Even when Edom vowed to rebuild, the Lord said He would tear it down again. Israel would watch with their own eyes and confess, “Great is the Lord—even beyond the border of Israel!”

His love was never limited by their borders or their feelings. It was bigger, older, and more faithful than their circumstances. Friend, does that land softly for you the way it does for me? Because we still ask the same question, don’t we? When the days feel ordinary or hard, when the evidence of kindness seems thin, our hearts can whisper, “How have You loved me?” And the Father still answers by pointing us further back—and further forward—to the cross.

There the free electing love of God found its fullest voice. Jesus, the true and better Jacob, the Chosen One, took the judgment we deserved so that we might stand secure, loved, and kept. The ruins of our old life of sin lie in the dust, while we are held by a love that does not depend on our performance or our present comfort. So while we wait, while we wonder, we don’t have to drift. We can lean into the peace Christ has already purchased and let the ancient declaration steady us again: “I have loved you.”

Personal Reflection Questions

• Where in your life right now do you find yourself quietly asking the Lord, “How have You loved me?”
• Can you recall a time when remembering His past faithfulness—either in Scripture or in your own story—helped quiet a present doubt?
• How does seeing God’s love as free and electing, rather than something we earn, change the way you rest in Him today?
• What would it look like this week for you to join Israel’s eventual confession: “Great is the Lord—even beyond the border of my current circumstances”?

I’m grateful we could sit with these words together. May His unchanging love meet you right where you are, and may your heart stay soft and steady until the day we see Him face to face.

Your fellow sheep