The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! – Mark 1:15

The good news was not that God loves us. That’s definitely good, but it wasn’t news. God has always loved us. Sending Jesus showed us his love, and was because of his love, but his love for us didn’t change.

Without a kingdom perspective, we can get fooled into seeing God in the Old Testament as primarily wrathful and judgemental. Jesus’s mission is then reduced to appeasing God’s anger so we can finally experience His love.

But God has always loved his people. It’s a primary message throughout the Bible.

• The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you – Dt 7:7-8
• “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. – Is 54:10
• The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” – Jer 31:3
• I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion – Hos 2:19
• For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life – John 3:16
• For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ – Eph 1:4-5

The good news isn’t that God started loving us. It’s that he sent Jesus to set us free to be in his love.

• The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. – 1 John 3:8
• The Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves – Col 1:12-13

God loves you and always has, but to see that clearly in the Old Testament you need to view it through the perspective of the good news about the kingdom.