God Loves You for No Good Reason.

OK, I’ll be the first to admit it. The phrase, “God’s unconditional love,” leaves me a little cold.

Sure, it makes for a wonderful Christian cliché. But it is a mighty difficult concept to wrap our minds around. My mind, anyway.

Yet once we do, it will change our lives. Forever.

I’ll venture to say that we have such difficulty actually believing that God’s love is unconditional – that He does indeed love us for no good reason – because the only love we have ever experienced on a human level is undeniably conditional. That once the “good reason” is gone, the love is gone.

Or to put it another way, I rather suspect that it’s downright difficult, if not impossible, to hear someone say to us, “I love you,” without expecting him or her to qualify it in some way…

I love you when…

I love you if…

I love you because…

I love you unless…

Fact is, I love you when… is not unconditional love.

I love you if… is not unconditional love.

I love you because… is not unconditional love.

I love you unless… is not unconditional love.

To put a more personal point on this discussion, I would dare to ask you this pointed and personal question: Can you think of anyone in your life in whose love you rest absolutely secure with no fear whatsoever that you can or will do anything — anything — that will cause his or her love for you to diminish in any way? 

A love that includes no deal-breakers. A love in which anything and everything is forgivable. A love that fully accepts you just the way you are. A love that makes no demands on you in order for you to continue to be loved. A love that imposes upon you no expectations in order for you to continue to be loved. 

A truly, fully, unqualified unconditional love.

Do you have anyone in your life who loves you that way?

I suppose the safe answer — the clichéd answer — is God. He loves us that way. His love is unconditional.

But even with God, it’s more a matter of my knowing it intellectually, theologically, theoretically, than feeling it and resting in it safely and securely. I cannot escape the thought forever lurking in the deepest darkest recesses of my often-restless mind that even though some in my life profess their unconditional love to me, there must be buried in their sweet sentiment some hidden deal-breaker. That their love is a fragile thing, too easily broken.

Despite their assurances, I cannot help but fear that I could one day potentially do something or say something that will diminish their love for me. That things between us might begin to cool, if not freeze-over completely. That our relationship might never be the same.

Which is to say that I sometimes feel as though I am drowning in a sea of insecurity.

I’ll take it one step further. I’m not sure that as a fallen human being I (or anyone else for that matter) is capable of loving another person unconditionally. Try as I might to love someone that way, the qualifiers “when,” “if,” “because,” and “unless” invariably seem to get in the way.

Not so with God.

He knows no such limitations to His love.

He takes great delight in declaring that “Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful… But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful” (Romans 5:6-8).

“When we were helpless and sinful” are the operative words in that passage. God doesn’t love us when… God doesn’t love us if… God doesn’t love us because… God doesn’t love us unless we clean up our lives or do certain things worthy of His love. He doesn’t love us for any good reason. He loves us for NO good reason.

We need NEVER fear His rejection because God said, “Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice” (Psalm 5:17). We need NEVER fear His refusal because Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). We need NEVER fear that His love for us will EVER change — He can never love us any more than He does, and He certainly will never love us any less than He does — because as He said to Israel, so He says to you and to me, “I have never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!” (Jeremiah 31:3).

If you still have any doubts about that, just ask Peter who, in Jesus’ darkest hour, denied Him – “A servant girl came over and said to him, ‘You were one of those with Jesus…’ But Peter denied it in front of everyone. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about” (Matthew 26:69-70) – and disowned Him – “Peter swore, ‘A curse on me if I’m lying – I don’t know the man!’” (Matthew 26:74). Yet Jesus never, ever denied or disowned Peter, even in and especially in Peter’s darkest hour. 

And He will never, ever deny or disown you.

You will NEVER, EVER hear Him say…

I love you when…

I love you if…

I love you because…

I love you unless…

You’ll only ever hear Him say, I. LOVE. YOU. PERIOD.