Jesus Loves Unconditionally

What do you think about the Lord?  Do you believe He loves you or are you having a problem with that?  Most of us know He hates sin because of the destructive things it does when we submit to it.  He knows that sin is a destroyer and will cause everyone who practices it harm and devastation and He hates that about sin.  The Lord loves people and wants only the best for them!!

Do you think of Him as a tyrant, just waiting for you to sin so He can punish you when you do, or do you think He only loves you for what you can do for Him?  Maybe you think you have been so sinful that Jesus couldn’t, or wouldn’t, love you or forgive you.  

You may have been brought up in a family where you felt unloved and unwanted, or maybe you were abused mentally, physically, psychologically, sexually or emotionally, or possibly in a religious home where the Word was taught but not lived out.  Many times people see the Lord the way they see their parents and the way their parents treated them, I am guilty of that myself.  It has been a real struggle for me to believe that the Lord could love me the way His Word says He does, unconditionally. I have struggled with that for many years as a Christian, always thinking that I had to perform and do good works to ‘toe the mark,’ so to speak, or the Lord would be angry with me.  

If you are familiar with the Bible, you know that the Lord never beat up on anyone.  Yes, He did use some harsh words at times and in two separate incidents He cleared the Temple, but that was because of His righteous anger, these men were using the Temple for what it wasn’t intended for.  These men had set up their tables so they could make money, taking advantage of worshipers who traveled many miles to worship God.  These people made a mockery out of worship, for their purpose was to take advantage of the people. The Lord’s compassion was experienced far more than His anger and when He got angry He didn’t just fly off the handle, so to speak, to take revenge, no, He had full control of His anger and never sinned because of it.  Jesus looked at the evil that was being done in the Temple as flagrant disrespect for God and that is what triggered His actions!!  Did the Lord love these men?  Yes He did! 

Read what it says in Hebrews 12:5-11. “And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

The Lord was disciplining these men for a reason, not because He didn’t love them, He wanted them to do the right thing, which would not only benefit the other people coming to worship, but also for their benefit, if they were willing to listen.  Let’s be honest, the Lord does punish us when we sin.  I think people talk about the love of the Lord so often that it seems people think they can do most anything and the Lord will just let it slide and just over look it, but that is not true.  Maybe this is news to you, but the Lord corrects us because He loves us; correction is part of love. 

Proverbs 22:15, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him.”

Now read Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”

I am not going to tell you how to discipline, but if you can’t control your kids when they’re young, you will not be able to control them as adults.  This is my understanding, spanking your children on occasion out of love and not anger or any other reason, will not kill the children, and in the long run will help them learn certain boundaries which will be beneficial when they get to be adults.  Showing them love is the main ingredient, and that is what the Lord does.  People may dislike you or even hate you, but the Lord loves you more than you, or I, can comprehend or ever understand.

Think about this, He took our place and allowed himself to be crucified so that we could be in right standing with God.  He was terribly misused and He suffered to the point that you could hardly recognize Him and then He died and was buried.  Because of His obedience and love for us, even experiencing a separation from His Father because He took the sins of the world on His shoulders, a man who had no sin, so that through His precious shed blood we could be cleansed and made clean, as if we had never sinned; that’s how much the Lord loves us.  There is only one way that He could accomplish all this so I can’t leave it out; He rose again from the dead, so His grave is empty!  He is very much alive, not like other gods that men worship.

So if you think of God as anything but loving, kind, compassionate and merciful, you are wrong. Yes, God is just, so He judges sin and corrects us when we sin but He does it because He loves us and for no other reason.  He doesn’t do it out of revenge or to try to get even with us, no, He does it for our own good and we should thank Him for caring enough to keep us on the straight and narrow path that leads to His kingdom, praise His precious name!!     

So, I hope this has been an encouragement to you and you see the Lord in a different way if you are struggling with whether He loves you or not, He does love you more than we can ever know.  Something to think about!  May you have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!!