Unconditional Love

“Herein is love not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His So to be the propitiation for our sins.”  I John 4:10

To be loved and accepted for who you are is the ultimate desire of man.  There are many, in their longing to find unconditional love, who will look for love, as the song says, “in all the wrong places”–wealth, sex, fame, or other impossible means of obtaining that one seemingly elusive, insatiable desire for complete acceptance.  The truth is that they already have this unconditional love, but they just don’t know it.  It is as close as a whisper away.

God gave His only Son to die on the cross because of His great love for all people.  Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, that is, by His sacrifice on the cross, He appeased a righteous and holy God into accepting us back into a relationship with Him that had been broken by sin.  I suppose a simple way to say it is that Jesus’ sacrifice “won God over” to accept us as friends and not enemies.  God’s love is unconditional; there are no conditions that we must meet for Him to love us.  In order to become His child, though, we must turn from sin and place faith in Christ, but even those who reject Him are still loved by Him.

It’s sad that many folks who have lived in the past, are living now, or will live in the future never know the unconditional love that God has for them.  We’ve all heard the phrase “unrequited love”.  That describes a person who loves another deeply yet that other person does not love him or her in return.  I suppose it is possible that God experiences that “unrequited love” from all those for whom He gave life and all sorts of blessings, yet they do not love Him back.  Those who reject Him could experience this unconditional love, yet they had rather hang on to their sin.  They choose to endure misery, guilt, and shame which always accompanies sin rather than experience the peace, joy, and a secure future that is found only in Christ.  Go figure.