Until it approached Miami, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 had been the best kind: uneventful. It had taken off from New York City at 9:20 p.m. on December 29, 1972, with 163 passengers and 13 crew members. But when the plane began its approach to Miami International Airport, communication in the cockpit broke down.

First, a green indicator light—showing that the landing gear was down and locked in place—failed to illuminate. Did it mean the wheels were not down and locked, or did it mean the indicator light bulb was defective? The crew got permission to abort the landing and remain aloft at a height of just 2,000 feet while they tried to determine the facts. The pilot put the plane on autopilot while all hands focused their attention on the light bulb.

Second, the engineer was sent into the belly of the plane beneath the cockpit to look through a small window to see if he could determine visually if the landing gear was down and locked. Because he was away from his station, and because the pilot and co-pilot were totally focused on trying to fix the light bulb, no one heard a warning signal that the plane was rapidly losing altitude. They were over the pitch-black Florida Everglades so there were no visual clues that the plane was losing altitude. Until, that is, it crashed into the swamp at 227 miles per hour.

Only 77 people—69 passengers and eight flight attendants—survived the crash. Lives were lost because of misunderstanding and miscommunication and lack of paying attention to reality.

One signal—a light bulb—was or was not sending a proper signal, and the pilots couldn’t determine what was true. Another signal—the altitude warning chime—sounded properly, but there was nobody there to hear it and respond. A tragedy occurred because messages were either misunderstood or not received.

Less tragic examples of misunderstanding occur in our lives on almost a daily basis. Either we hear a message but don’t understand it or we fail to hear it at all due to our preoccupations or preconceptions. Sometimes the results of misunderstandings are funny, sometimes they are far-reaching—but other times they are fatal. 

The misunderstandings and miscommunication on Flight 401 proved to be physically fatal to many innocent people. But there’s another kind of misunderstanding that can be spiritually fatal, a result that is far more serious.

I want to make sure you don’t misunderstand the most important message God has sent to you: “I love you. I always have and I always will.” To reach the broadest audience possible with this message, I wrote a book to clarify what may be the three most misunderstood words in the world: “God loves you.” 

I have preached the message that “God loves you” both at Shadow Mountain Community Church and in other venues across the country. And response has been amazing, yet revealing! It has convinced me that not only do many non-Christians misunderstand God’s love, but many Christians have a weak understanding as well.

“God loves you” is such a simple phrase. Why does it get misunderstood? First, think of all the silly ways the word “love” is used in our culture: We love ice cream, baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolets as the saying goes. We love movies, songs, pets, flavors, seasons, people (except when we don’t love them) . . . you get the idea. The whole idea of “love” has been made so anemic that we unconsciously transfer that diluted understanding to God when someone says, “God loves you.”

But even when we have a healthier, stronger idea of love, we still apply a human-kind of love to God. Because we tend to love “if” or “because”—putting conditions on our love—it’s difficult to comprehend God’s love, which is love “in spite of.” God’s love is unconditional and uncaused. We did nothing to initiate His love, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. That’s a new idea to most people, including many Christians. But it’s the biblical truth.

When we misunderstand God’s love, we misunderstand God—because the Bible says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). And the results of that kind of misunderstanding are never funny, always far-reaching, and, if not corrected, spiritually fatal.

My prayer is that this month you will be reminded, or perhaps come to know for the first time, “the width and length and depth and height” of God’s love for you (Ephesians 3:18).