Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).

God’s love for us is so great that He wants to spend eternity with us—not, “until death do us part,” but “until death unites us forever.”

On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus took a cup of wine and said to His disciples, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). This new covenant is a love covenant. Because of God’s great love, Jesus gave His life for you. He took your sins, your guilt, your condemnation, your just desserts. He took the penalty and the wrath of God against you and your sin, and in its place He established God’s love covenant with you through His death.

And now God invites you to enter into that love covenant with Him. He wants you to become His child so that He can live His life through you. He wants others to know of His love through you.

Many parents, dads especially, like to live their lives through their sons. My dad was no exception. When I was just two years old, he put a glove in my hand and started throwing baseballs to me. By the time I was four, I could proficiently field any ball. Dad always seemed to be throwing footballs at me or shooting basketball hoops in the yard. In my teen years after I scored a touchdown, I could always hear my dad’s voice above the hundreds of fans yelling and cheering. He could out-yell them all! I’m told that he would bow to the people in the stands and say, “That’s my son.”

In a sense, my dad lived his life through his son, hoping that my achievements would exceed his. I knew he felt proud of me, his son, and gloried in the acclaim that came to me through my athletic exploits.

I think our heavenly Father feels much the same. At two special moments in the earthly life of Jesus, God took great pains to say, “That’s My boy!” At Jesus’ baptism, for example, a voice rang out from heaven:

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). In other words, “Hey, folks—that’s My boy!” Again at the Mount of Transfiguration, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5).

Today, your Father God wants to live His life through you. As you enter into this covenant of love, it becomes possible for God to express His life—His nature, His desires, and His actions—through you. God wants your life to testify to Who He is. He wants you to do great exploits for Him. By entering into this love covenant with God, the Lord can begin to use you to reveal Himself to the world around you.

Through this love covenant, God agrees to provide for you and to take care of you. He pledges to watch over you, to keep you, to shield you and to protect you. The author of Psalm 91 begins by writing,

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust” (Psalm 91:1-2).

By the end of the psalm, God Himself starts speaking:

Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation (vv. 14-16).

That’s God describing what He’ll do for you when you enter into this love covenant with Him. All of these rich blessings and amazing benefits are yours when you “set your love upon Him.”