Rejoicing in the Truth: What If We Believed How Much God Loves Us? By Karen Rowe
Rejoicing in the Truth — A Bible Study and Devotional Reflection
Let’s slow down and look at these scriptures together. I’m sharing what I’m learning about knowing God’s love, rejoicing in the truth, and trusting Him through the hard things.
This is an inspiring quote
—but what is the context? Love is being described.
Love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6).
First John 4:16 tells us that God is love,
and Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that He is the truth.
You may wonder, “How do you get all of that out of this verse?”
Let’s pause and look at these scriptures together
—and consider what it means to know and believe the love God has for us.
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.”
—1 Corinthians 13:6, KJV
As I look at this picture and read these words, I want to pause.
What does it mean to rejoice?
What is iniquity?
What is the truth we’re rejoicing in?
What is the good thing God has done?
And how does that truth reach into our hearts, fill us with joy, and teach us to trust Him—even while we’re still walking through hard things?
This scripture is describing love.
And God is love.
Let’s think about that a little longer.
We may have heard “God loves you” so many times—but have we come to know and believe the love He has for us?
What would change in our hearts if we trusted Him?
What If We Believed How Much God Loves Us?
If we believe He loves us, we will seek to know Him.
And as we come to know Him, we learn to trust Him with our next steps
—even when those steps take us through very difficult troubles.
Let’s pause and think about that.
There is a purpose in learning to trust Him here, too.
“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”—James 1:4, KJV
That is growing into maturity, lacking nothing.
We may still be walking through the trouble,
but God is working in us as we learn to remain steadfast in Him.
Scripture compares the testing of our faith to the refining of gold
—and describes that tried faith as more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:6–7).
Let’s think about that.
Gold is still gold
—even while it is being refined.
And the difficulty we’re walking through does not mean God has stopped loving us. Even here, we can discover how faithful He is.
Our faith is precious in His sight.
In His sight.
Let’s pause there, too.
That brings a prayer to my heart:
“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”—Psalm 19:14, KJV
What am I dwelling on in my heart?
And what is coming out of my mouth?
Lord, let it be acceptable in Your sight.
He is my strength and my Redeemer.
And “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
I’m learning to bring these things together
—to bring Him the meditation of my heart, trust His love, and let His Word
shape my response.
Even here, in the difficult things,
I can rejoice in the truth of who He is.
He is the One I’m trusting to strengthen me
and teach me to love as He has loved me.
And on the other side of that mountain,
we may recognize what He has been doing in our hearts all along
—loosening the things that entangled us, cleansing what hindered us,
and teaching us to love others as He has loved us.
There is joy in discovering His love this way.
And we can begin to know that joy while we are still
walking through the hard things.
“The joy of the LORD is your strength”
(Nehemiah 8:10).
What if we believed how much God loves us—and trusted Him with the next step?
THE INVITATION:
What Is the Good Thing God Has Done?
Why did Jesus come? What is good? What is evil?
What do we need to be saved from?
We don’t need another way to Heaven, because Jesus is Heaven!
Let me explain what I mean.
He is the One who makes Heaven precious to us.
When I say “Jesus is Heaven,” I’m expressing the joy of being with Him
—knowing Him and living in His love.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
And this life with God begins even now.
Our hearts are where we receive Him and where His transforming work reaches into our lives: His love shaping our hearts, His truth renewing our minds, and His will directing how we live.
In John 14:23, Jesus tells us that He and the Father will make their home with the person who loves Him and keeps His word.
Let’s pause and think about that.
God making His home with us.
Jesus teaches us to pray:
“Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
—Matthew 6:10, KJV
As He transforms our hearts and renews our minds, we learn to praise God for who He is, acknowledge the truth Jesus teaches, and seek His way for this life with Him.
We can experience His presence and the life He gives here and now, while still awaiting its fullness.
Lord, let Your will be done in my own heart.
Let Your will shape my thoughts, my words, and the way I live.
Even now. Here on earth, as it is in Heaven.
But let’s slow down and understand why this news is so good.
When people say, “No, our problem is this. Our problem is that,” we say:
No, no, no. Our problem goes all the way back to the beginning.
God created the world.
God created man.
He put man in the garden
-- to keep the garden,
and He gave that man a command.
And God held that man to perfect, *perpetual obedience to that command.
*Perpetual means continuing without end.
*Perfect means complete, without fault or defect.
In “perfect, perpetual obedience,” perfect means obeying God fully—without any disobedience—and perpetual means continuing without end.
For Adam, the command was clear:
he was to obey God, and God warned him that disobedience would bring death.
And he disobeyed.
We, too, need to understand the seriousness of sin.
But our hope of life rests in Jesus Christ
—His obedience, His sacrifice, and His resurrection.
We cannot earn that life through perfect obedience of our own.
We receive it by grace through faith.
And through that faith, we learn to obey Him
—with His help.
And God promised him life if he kept that one command;
and death if he didn’t —and he didn’t keep it.
And this leads me to another thought: their disobedience did not take God by surprise. Scripture tells us that Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world, and that God’s grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began (1 Peter 1:19–20; 2 Timothy 1:9).
God warned Adam that disobedience would bring death. And before the world began, He already had His saving purpose in Jesus Christ. The hope of life through Jesus was already in His purpose.
One man Adam ate, and because of that one man:
Sin entered the world.
And death through sin.
And everyone born from that man through ordinary generation inherited that man’s sin nature.
And because of that sin nature:
Sins proceed from it.
And our world is broken because of that sin.
And we stand guilty before our Holy and Righteous God.
And we know that He is Holy.
And we know that He is Righteous.
And we crave Justice.
But the problem is that if God gives us justice, we ALL die.
And so, God, in HIS goodness and in HIS mercy, sent forth HIS Son.
WHO was NOT born of ordinary generation,
but was born of a virgin.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit—the holy Son of God.
Luke 1:35 connects His conception with His holiness;
Hebrews 4:15 affirms His sinlessness.
YES, the virgin Birth Matters!
WHY?
Because if He’s born of an ordinary generation, He’s born in sin.
But because He’s NOT born IN sin, He’s clean of sin.
His record is clean.
And He keeps His record clean, and He obeys God’s Law.
And because He’s fully God and fully man,
He obeys the law of God ON OUR BEHALF in HIS active obedience.
And then, in HIS passive obedience,
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.
Pause to read John Chapter 1:
The Eternal Word
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The Word Becomes Flesh
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
WE ALL, like sheep, have gone astray.
Each of us had turned to his own way.
But God laid UPON Him the INIQUITY of us all!!!
And Christ died for sin once for all,
the Just for the unjust.
And God imputes our sinfulness to Him,
and He nails our sinfulness to the tree.
He bears our guilt and judgment; He Himself remains without sin.
This is describing Christ bearing our sin, rather than becoming morally sinful.
And Christ dies and rises again on the 3rd day FOR OUR Justification.
And there’s another imputation.
The Righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to us!
So that God can be both just
and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus Christ.
So that all those who come to Christ may enter in.
So all those who place their faith in Christ might be saved.
But NOT ONLY saved, BUT sanctified.
Because He’s the 1st Born of many brethren.
We’re justified, and we’re adopted into the family of God.
And we are sanctified, and
as His children we begin to bear the family resemblance.
And we’re further sanctified throughout this life.
By the very same Gospel that saves us!!!
UNTIL one day,
when all is said and done:
We’re not just saved from the Penalty of sin.
We’re not just saved from the Power of sin.
But one day we’re glorified and saved from the very Presence of sin!!!
That’s the Gospel we preach.
That’s the Gospel that we need!
And that’s the Gospel that’s more than enough!
Worth a pause for this testimony that might encourage you too:
With His Help
With every temptation,
God is faithful to provide a way of escape,
that we may be able to bear it
(1 Corinthians 10:13).
We are learning to trust Him.
Once I said, “When my discernment failed, my faith crumbled.”
But I began to understand something.
My discernment was wrong.
I had put my confidence in my emotions and called it His Spirit’s discernment.
I was learning.
My judgment had failed.
God had not.
When we get something wrong,
we can bring it to Him.
It does not have to crush our faith.
We can let Him correct where we have placed our trust.
I think of it this way:
“God looks at our mistakes with an eraser.”
His forgiveness is costly
—Jesus paid for it.
And when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness
(1 John 1:9).
Grace teaches us.
It teaches us to turn from ungodliness and
learn to live in a way that pleases Him
(Titus 2:11–12).
There is mercy.
There is correction.
There is another opportunity to learn to walk in obedience
—with His help.
God does the work!
“For it is God which worketh in you both
to will and to do
of his good pleasure.”
—Philippians 2:13, KJV
And as we receive His correction, we learn meekness.
We learn to instruct another with gentleness, remembering how much we ourselves have needed His patience and mercy.
“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves;
if God peradventure will give them repentance to
the acknowledging of the truth."
—2 Timothy 2:25, KJV
Peradventure means perhaps.
We can share the truth with someone, but we cannot make their heart turn.
We depend on God to grant repentance
—and we need that same grace ourselves.
And here we are again: the acknowledging of the truth.
Lord,
help me receive Your correction.
Help me recognize where I have trusted my own understanding.
Teach me to trust You and respond with the meekness You are teaching me.
Have We Come to Know and Believe This Love?
Now, let’s come back to the question we started with.
What if we believed how much God loves us?
We’ve considered what He has done through Jesus Christ.
What is our response to Him?
When we trust God, we’re putting our faith in God.
Let’s pause there.
Am I trusting Him?
Have I come to know and believe the love He has for me?
Am I willing to bring Him the very thing that has my heart tangled up today?
This is where that prayer becomes personal:
“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”
—Psalm 19:14, KJV
Lord, what am I holding on to?
What am I rehearsing in my heart?
Is it helping me love others as You have loved me?
You know what happened.
You know what hurts.
And You know what needs to change in me.
Will I trust You with that, too?
We are just talking here, but I believe the Lord is guiding me to think this way.
Forgiveness is giving yourself space to trust God with your future.
Just as grace doesn't make a wrong right. Grace teaches us and gives us another opportunity to get it right - and that release can go both ways.
In other words, not letting your heart and mind dwell on another's wrong doing. And also, giving yourself space to thank Jesus for your peace.
By meditating on the good news of Jesus, and thanking God for the love He has for you, you will begin to rejoice in the truth by speaking God's Word that is filling your heart by His love and devotion that you can hear by speaking to hear His Word that is written for you and me and the world to come to know and believe.
Praise to God lifts the burdens from your own heart.
You can trust God.
Asking Jesus for help and telling Him that you trust Him is a reach to God with the power to bring peace and healing to your heart.
Love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.”
When we turn away from God, we’re turning toward what rejects Him
—His love, His goodness, His truth.
This is what the Bible calls sin.
But through Jesus, we are invited to turn to Him.
To receive His forgiveness.
To believe what He says and follow Him.
And this is what I’m learning: as I bring Him the meditation of my heart and put His Word into practice, I begin to experience the freedom of loving where my heart was once tangled up.
There is joy in that.
The truth reaches into the place where I’m actually living.
Into my thoughts. My words. My next response.
What if we believed how much God loves us
—and trusted Him with the next step?
Lord, What Is in My Own Heart?
Before we finish, let’s come back to the verse we’re studying:
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.”
—1 Corinthians 13:6, KJV
What is iniquity in my own heart?
Iniquity is wrongdoing
—what is contrary to God’s righteousness.
But let’s bring that question to Him personally.
Lord, is there anything impure in my heart,
in my thoughts,
or in the words I speak?
And what does rejoicing really mean?
To rejoice is to take joy or delight in something.
Could looking at what we thrive on
help us recognize what we’re rejoicing in?
What do we keep returning to, feeding on, and giving room to grow in our hearts?
Lord, am I taking delight in something
that is drawing me away from Your love and truth?
We are learning that Jesus is the truth.
And in John 10:10,
Jesus tells us what the thief comes to do
—and why Jesus has come:
“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
—John 10:10, KJV
This brings me back to what I’ve been sharing about
the enemy trying to steal my peace.
What am I allowing to shape my thoughts?
What am I believing?
Am I listening to the One who came so that I might have life?
And I think again of Jeremiah 29:11.
Even while His people were in exile, God told them:
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD,
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
—Jeremiah 29:11, KJV
They were still waiting.
Still walking through difficult things.
But God had not forgotten them.
This was a generational promise!
Perhaps this little chat together will help you, as it has been a help to me, too.
We are not stuck. We are growing.
But our growth calls for a response from us: trust in God and believe in the love He has for us. Receive His correction. Take the next step with Him.
Let’s pray.
Lord, show me what is in my own heart. Is there anything impure in my thoughts or in the words I speak? Is there something I’m holding on to that You are calling me to release?
Help me acknowledge the truth. Teach me to rejoice in what is good in Your sight.
Lord Jesus, I release this to You. And I thank You for loving the world—and me—so much that You died for me and rose again, so that through You I can have new life.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
And I want to leave us with the prayer Jesus prayed.
He prayed for His disciples
—and for those who would believe in Him through their word.
That reaches us, too.
“And this is life eternal,
that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
—John 17:3, KJV
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.”
—John 17:20, KJV
Keep Studying With Me
Perhaps this little chat together has helped you as it has helped me. Take time to read these passages in their context, pray, and bring the questions of your own heart to the Lord.
Love, truth, and knowing God
The Good News of Jesus Christ
Romans 5:12–21 — Through Adam came sin; through Jesus Christ comes life
2 Corinthians 5:17–21 — Reconciliation and righteousness in Christ
Romans 3:21–26; 4:20–25 — Justification through faith in Jesus
1 Peter 2:24; 3:18 — The Just for the unjust, to bring us to God
Romans 8 — Life in the Spirit, adoption, and the glory to come
Learning to trust Him—with His help
Psalm 19:12–14 — Our faults, our words, and the meditation of our hearts
James 1:2–4; 1 Peter 1:6–9 — Patience, tried faith, and rejoicing
Jeremiah 29:10–14 — Thoughts of peace, prayer, and seeking God
1 Corinthians 10:13; 1 John 1:5–9 — Help in temptation, forgiveness, and cleansing
Titus 2:11–14; Philippians 2:12–13 — Grace teaches us, and God works in us
2 Timothy 2:24–26 — Meekness, repentance, and acknowledging the truth
We are learning together. Let’s keep seeking to know Him, believing His love, and putting His Word into practice.
Continue Studying With Me
Read the Gospel teaching from this devotion on its own page
—a place to return to, study, and share.
What Is Iniquity? — Learning to Examine Our Own Hearts
What does iniquity mean, and how do we recognize it in our thoughts, words, and actions? Explore this short Bible word study as we learn to rejoice in the truth.
Read the Gospel teaching →
What Is Iniquity? — A closer look in our Word Study.
Who Is Jesus? — Knowing the Savior and why He came.
The Gospel That Is More Than Enough — The Good News we explored together.
Thoughts of Peace — Learning to trust God when the enemy tries to steal our peace.
I’ve added the links here as these teachings have become available. We are learning and growing together—one step of faith at a time.
Thank you for taking this time to pause with me.
My prayer is that we would keep coming to know and believe the love God has for us—and learn to love others as He has loved us.
Still learning, still growing, and rejoicing in the truth with you,
Sharing with thanksgiving, in Jesus' name,
Karen, a fellow learner
Hope in Today Ministries, Inc.
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