How Was the Old Testament God’s Love Letter to His People?

　　Love letters are expressions of love in the form of writing, whether with a paper and pen, an email, or even a text message to a person or group of people. Its intention is to show the amount of love one has for another as well as to express those feelings in the most passionate way.

　　The Bible has always been regarded as God’s love letter to His people. Christ as the center of the Bible, by His sacrifice, is His ultimate expression of love towards us. By giving His only begotten son, we feel God’s ultimate love that no person can ever express.

　　The Old Testament is written in such a way that it prophesied the coming of the Savior. It is also written as a love letter from God to us to show how much He loves us in the form of poetry and songs.

　　Let us now read and understand some of the most beautiful verses in the Old Testament that show how God expresses His feelings towards us.

　　

A Love Letter about His Creation

The first verse in the Old Testament and also one of the most inspiring love letters of God is found in Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

　　This verse talks about how God created man in his own image and emphasizes both female and male. Imagine being made exactly from the likeness of God! It is as if God is telling us through His letters that He loves us so much that we were created exactly like Him.

　　

A Love Letter about Knowing Us

A second love letter that is also very inspiring are the verses found in Psalm 139:

　　You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

　　Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

　　If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

　　If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

　　For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

　　Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand — when I awake, I am still with you.

　　If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

　　I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

　　This passage is David’s song revealing God’s attentive and delicate love for us. He intimately created and knows us — from the very beginning.

　　

A Love Letter about Being Our Mighty Warrior

The third verse is found in Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” This verse talks about God as a mighty warrior who saves.

　　We are also reminded in Deuteronomy 4:29 that “if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.” We have to seek Him because He alone knows our hearts.

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　　In Isaiah 40:11, we are also reminded that God tends to us as His lambs, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

　　And in Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’”

　　These verses describe how God is our mighty warrior. He never leaves us, and this is profoundly told in the Old Testament with these verses as examples. Reading these love letters from God through the Old Testament gives us hope for our future.

　　

A Love Letter about Saving Us

One of the most important love letters that the Old Testament conveys is God’s love for us by giving His only begotten Son to save us. Jesus is the centerfold of the Holy Word and He is foretold in the Old Testament as God’s love letter.

　　In Jeremiah 32:40, we can read God’s promise of an everlasting covenant, “I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.”

　　The Old Testament is God’s love letter to his people in such a way that it shows how God created man, how he makes sure that He tends to them, and also how He saves his creations through His Son, Jesus.

　　It is a love letter told by different authors from generation to generation and until now it still serves as a love letter for us today.

　　For further reading:

　　How Are We Created in the Image of God?

　　How Is There a Way that Appears to be Right but Leads to Death?

　　Did God Really Know Me Before I Was Born?

　　What Old Testament Prophecies Predicted Jesus and the Cross?

　　Why Should We Study the Old Testament?

　　Can Nothing Really Separate Us from the Love of God?

　　What Does it Mean to Seek God’s Face?