Unconditonal Love: What Does It Mean?

Suggested by: RLC

The statement "GOD Loves us unconditionally" is something I have heard for as long as I can remember, but this statement has always troubled me. Why?

1. The phrase "unconditional love" is never used in the Bible.

2. Several of Jesus's parables deny any such statement.

3. It just sounds ear-tickling, and this always makes me cautious. It usually means a form of the truth has been distorted to appeal to the self-serving nature. Distorting a form of the truth, or using a form of the truth to support a lie, to justify harmful and useless lifestyles, mislead others, and many similar techniques is one of the most common practices we see being practiced by the self-serving nature of Man--Satan.

If one of our children was a drug addict or practiced some other lifestyle that we saw as harmful to their greater good, we would still feel we love them; but is this love unconditional? In truth, they are a drug addict. They know they "love" the drug of their choice. More than likely they will lie, steal, and do many other things to support their drug habit. They see themselves to be a person that we do not love. We only love the person we see them capable of being. When they use the word "I", they are talking about the drug addict. When we say their name and feel love, we have a much different view of the person we love. We see the person we love as being sick and desire that they become healthy again. Unconsciously, we know the universal truth: Good is the beginning of all things--even people. Therefore, everyone can return to their "roots" and grow from there--be born again. Each person can be like a diamond that begins collecting useless dirt until it grows into a large ball of hard, dry, mud. Wash away all the mud, and set the beautiful diamond in a beautiful setting with other diamonds, and all become much more valuable than the sum of the parts. Therefore, we love the diamond inside our straying child--the pure essence of who they are without all the useless lifestyles that feed on the good life essence given them by GOD in the beginning. That essence is buried deep under the useless lifestyes that feed on it.

Now if that is our view of our children who have strayed from their higher path, isn't this view magnified and greatly purified when GOD views us. HE created us in the beginning to serve a very high purpose. HE gave all of us gifts and abilities to develop until we are mature and ready to serve that high purpose forever. When I say GOD Loves me, I KNOW that the person HE loves is not all that I am or the person I currently see myself to be. HE loves the person HE created me to be and only that part of me that is uncorrupted by the self-serving nature. The chances are high that the two views of who I am are very different. Until I know I can walk on water, raise the dead, and do many other things Jesus did, I will continue to believe that the person I can be must continue to grow while much of the person I am must diminish and die.

For the above reasons, I am troubled when I hear someone saying "I" am saved--GOD loves "me". I know that this is a form of the truth; but based on the way the statement is made, I feel the person making such a statement sees the person who is saved and loved as the person they see themselves to be. I consider that view as a distortion of the truth. Many times the person making such a statement will also state that they cannot be perfect--denying GOD's ability to perfect them and assuming that HE accepts something less than perfection. Will GOD give Christ an imperfect body when HE has an unlimited amount of time to accomplish perfection? The other problem is that when we feel we have accomplished a goal, we are unlikely to seek as diligently ways to grow beyond where we are. Why should we? Therefore, I feel such an attitude will reduce the sensitivity we have toward what we do daily and how what we do expresses the life of Christ in us. Instead the life of the self-serving nature has found a way to maintain and feed its life.

Yes, GOD loves all HE has created. That includes the essence of you and me, but I do not consider that love unconditional. For me, it is very conditional on my seeking the path to my becoming the person HE created me to be. Through my seeking, HE will reveal the path as I am ready to walk it; and I will progress closer and closer to becoming the person HE knows and knew from the beginning. If I do not do this, then I become as the servant who buried his coin until his master returned.

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