When you face a situation that is painful or when it seems like everything is going wrong, is your first thought, “God, why me? What did I do to deserve this?” When our car breaks down in traffic, or there’s trouble in our marriage that’s not changing, or our boss is critical and puts us down, too often we think that it’s because we’ve done something wrong and God must be upset with us. We’re viewing the difficulties in our life as a reflection of the way God loves us, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re believing the enemy’s lie that God loves us according to our performance.
Actually, the Scripture says God loves us unconditionally: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). If you’re basing God’s love on your actions or by your results, that’s conditional. But God so loved us that He gave His only Son for us unconditionally. “God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). You can’t work for God’s love; you can only believe and receive it.
I’m so grateful today that God loves us just the way we are. He doesn’t wait until we get ourselves looking good enough, until we’re all cleaned up, until we somehow measure up to what we think we should be in order to qualify for His love. God calls each of us into a relationship with Him just the way we are right at this moment. He calls us from a divine place of unconditional love and commitment to us. We have to build and live our lives on this foundation of God’s love, approval, and forgiveness—all that God freely provided for us on the cross through Jesus Christ. He accepted us, He forgave us, and He approved us—period.
The good news is, you can live in this freedom today. You can get up in the morning and truly say, “God, I’m not going to condemn myself because I know there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. I believe that You love me with an everlasting love. I’m going to go out and be my very best today, honoring You, knowing that I’m not perfect, but You are. I believe that there’s nothing You can’t do through me.” When you live your life like that, you’ll be steady, you’ll be strong, and you’ll live an abundant, flourishing life. You’ll not only live in freedom, but you’ll have so much love in your life that you’ll begin to give it away.