God's Unconditional Love

Romans 5:8- "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

In the first “Love” Foundation we talked about God’s love as being unconditional. This literally means that there is no condition to it. There’s nothing we had to do to gain it, and the inverse is true as well - there is nothing we can do to lose it.

Conditional means that something is made or granted on certain terms. The truth is, we often treat God’s love as if it is conditional. It is easy to base the love of the Father off of our own understanding of Earthly love, the kind that can change day to day or may have strings attached. We can’t fathom that what we have or have not done doesn’t affect God’s love for us. So we make note of our actions, our thoughts, or our desires. We try to calculate how much love we will receive from God based on whether or not we think we please Him.  To some degree this is actually a true experience - we can affect how much of God’s love we receive based on why we think God loves us. Our receiving has nothing to do with God’s giving, He is always loving us in indescribable ways. He is always loving us with the same love, no exceptions.

So why do we feel a need to keep track? Why do we take note of our good deeds and bad? Why is our “deed notebook” so important to us?

At least for me, my deed notebook was necessary because I could know for a fact the things I did wrong and the things I did right.  When I kept track I could grade myself to determine if I was worthy of God’s love or not. And, because I had a record of it, I could see if my bad outweighed my good- then it was all a balancing act to receive His love. This was something tangible, something I knew for certain, something in my own control.

God’s love is incomprehensible, inconceivable, and truly out of reach for our minds to understand.

And to be honest about it, it is a little scary sometimes. If I can’t understand it I am intimidated by it, and a little afraid.

But here's the thing about God's love: in its perfection, it removes all fears. God’s love is so complete, so good, that it gives us strength to overcome our weaknesses. Especially in learning how to love Him, and how He loves us.

Once we open our hearts and minds to live in God’s love fully, there will be no reason or room for fear and intimidation- there will only be peace, joy, and security knowing that God’s love doesn’t let go.

So, take out your “deeds notebook.”

Inhale.

Exhale.

And tear it to pieces.

There is no room and no need to keep track in the midst of a perfect God lavishing His perfect love on His children.

And here is this love in its purest form:

Romans 5:8 “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That means while we were still doing what required Him to go to the cross and writing in our deed notebook, He paid our price. And He did so knowing even after He died, we would still sin.

Think about that!

What an incredible thought. He didn’t make us stop sinning before He was willing to die for us. He doesn’t even take away our forgiveness if we sin again. He just loves us. Regardless of what we’ve done. Regardless of what we will do. He just loves us , no matter how much we have written our notebooks.

God’s love is dependent only on who He is. And Jesus came to show us - “God is love.” It is the essence of His being and we know He will never change.