Why Does God Still Love Us After All That? (Lent 11-2018)

It’s hard to contemplate the full extent of perfect love. What it’s like to truly love unconditionally. With mankind this is impossible as our nature is a broken one, even in loving others.

But it’s something that comes naturally to God, after all, He is love. (1 John 4:16)

Most of us, if we’re honest, would give up on those who chronically disappoint us. Eventually, we would reach a breaking point of feeling like someone is so incorrigible that it’s time to throw in the towel. Even parents. Even children. We want to keep loving them and to keep believing that they’ll turn out okay or they’ll change their ways. But then another disappointment and we end up feeling like we just can’t do this anymore. When our loved ones are living righteously, they’re easy to love! But to love unconditionally, when others fail us continually or dish out nothing but hate and rebellion, responding with perfect love is truly difficult.

How can God keep loving us even when we let Him down over and over and over again? Why Does God Still Love Us After All That?

The young Pi, in the movie Life of Pi that we’ve been using as our launch pad for 40 hard questions Why during Lent 2018, asks that very question.

The only answer I can come up with is that He’s not like us.

Psalm 145:13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.

He loves unconditionally because He is love.

Food for thought:

When you examine the loves in your life, how often are there strings attached?
With whom are you most likely to know love free from conditions and caveats?
Do you love someone because of how they treat you or because of the nice things they do or because their Match profile matches yours?
What makes others love you?
Why is it hard to grasp God’s unconditional love? 1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Join me tomorrow for “Why Couldn’t a Smart God Find Some Other Way?”

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page. Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

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Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.