But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
God’s love is unconditional. It does not depend on my performance. This means that He will not love me any less today or more tomorrow than He did yesterday because I performed worse or better.
He loves us when we’re still steeped in sin, but doesn’t want us to remain that way. Even though He has given us a free will, He extends to us the opportunity to make things right with Him.
We find an example of this in the case of the prodigal son in Lk. 15:11-32. In the story, the prodigal son appears to have been very wise in his own eyes; leading him to experience uncalled for suffering and pain. When he finally realizes his error, he retraces his steps back to his father and acknowledges his sin.
As human beings we are very different from God even though we were originally created in His image! Our ‘love’ is often fickle and most times will be extended where we can expect to get something in return! Even though apart from Christ, we don’t have the ability to offer anyone eternal life, we can be so ‘full of ourselves’ and cheekily set unreasonable demands on others, especially if we happen to be on the advantaged side! We see this in Matthew 18:24-30 in the case of the servant who was forgiven a huge debt by his Master. When his turn came to do the same for his fellow servant who owed him much less, he instead treated him with great contempt and humiliation! The father of the prodigal son who could have done the same after his son squandered his part of the family estate, chose instead to extend unconditional love and forgiveness to him. He didn’t demand anything from him first before reinstating him into sonship, but rather received him back with open arms.
In whatever areas we may have let God down, we too like the prodigal son can retrace our steps back to Him. All we need to do is to acknowledge our sins, ask for His forgiveness – and allow His love to wash all over us.
Prayer
Father, thank You for loving us unconditionally and giving us the opportunity to make things right with You. Help us not to take this for granted, but to extend the same to those around us.
