Yet I will not forget you.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;

Your walls are continually before Me.

—ISAIAH 49:15–16

One of the most striking word pictures in all Scripture describes how God cares for and protects Israel. Two times Israel is called “the apple of [God’s] eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10; Zechariah 2:8). The Hebrew term for “apple of the eye” actually means “the little man of the eye,” referring to the tiny reflection one sees of oneself when looking into another person’s eye. That “little man” in the pupil of God’s eye is Israel. He is always looking upon the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are reflected in His eye, just as He desires them to be a reflection of Him.

God’s love for Israel does not mean He loves everyone else less. But because He chose them to bear a special assignment to implement His plan to redeem all of us, they have a special place in His heart.

God Loves Those Who Believe in Christ

If we are believers in Jesus Christ, then the Father loves us as He loves His own Son. It’s an astonishing concept. Yet in that Upper Room on the night of His arrest, Christ prayed this very truth (John 17:23; see also John 16:27).

The love of the Father for the Son is holy and unfathomable. Yet He has promised to love believers in Christ just as deeply and fully, making us His children and full heirs to His kingdom. The apostle Paul says of those who are led by God’s Spirit, “These are sons of God” (Romans 8:14). In his Letter to the Colossians, Paul speaks of Christ’s followers as “the elect of God, holy and beloved” (3:12). And in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, he describes God as “our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace” (2:16).

God’s love for believers doesn’t mean He doesn’t love unbelievers. But as believers in Jesus Christ, we have become children of God. Now God loves us as His own family.

God Loves the World

The most profound expression of God’s love is wrapped up in this truth: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This world that God loves is a world that man ruined by his fall into sin. Yet man’s failure did not quench God’s unconditional love. In fact, as Paul tells us, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).