Which is it... sinners or like God?!

God's love for ⁴us is without conditions. FULL STOP! i.e. to be fully accepted and embraced by God requires nothing from us. God's love for us is based on someone else meeting the requirements, ¹not us. 

However, that doesn't mean there is not a good reason for His infinite love for us. There is a major reason. He values and therefore loves us because we are like him - in His image. 

This has nothing to do with what we do and only with who we are. Who God made us to be, not our trying to make ourselves more acceptable and loveable.

This is why He loved us before we lifted one finger for Him. In fact even while we were still in our state of rebellious distrust of Him.

"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us..." - Romans 5:8

"...But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—..." -  Ephesians 2:4-5 

Have you ever scratched your head wondering why he would value and love us while we were still in a state of rebellious distrust? It is because our rebellion didn't eliminate our being like God, it only marred it - though severely. 

This resulted in our spiritual sight and sense going dormant (unless His Spirit opens our eyes). We are now broken and blind to seeing God's infinite worth, beauty, and love. The Bible describes this as being spiritually blind and dead to God. Knowing God but not fully yet

But our capacity for love, light, and life in God didn't go away and is fully intact - we are still like God - i.e. we still long to love and be loved. We are hard-wired for love if you will, because God is and we are like Him. 

God values and loves our being like Him because we still have the capacity to fully participate in the community of love that God is as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. 

This capacity for infinite love never went away; it only ceased to function properly. In our broken and spirituality-blind condition, we now long for the wrong things instead of the one true thing because we are blind to the true source of love, i.e., our Creator.

A recap and summary 

Our being in God's image is vital to how God sees us and who we are. This means there is good reason for Him to love us i.e. who we are vs what we do. We are not just rebellious - aka "dirty rotten sinners." This is only half the story - ultimately the far lesser half - once we accept his offer. The more important half is we are still also like God with the infinite capacity to fully engage, delight in, and commune with the infinite and experience infinite love and joy!!!

Being like God has nothing to do with what we do (our good deeds) for others (God and other bearers of His image) - as far as being in good standing with Him - but has to do with something about us - i.e. who we are, not what we do. 

God's love has nothing to do with something that comes from us or is offered by us - i.e. something we do in an attempt to earn His love. 

Our only requirement is to recognize that Christ did everything necessary to fully restore us to His Father and accept this as a free gift (the essence of grace). 

Do you receive this? If you only know this but haven't fully believed it, simply recognize He did everything necessary to restore you so He can pour out His love on you. A love He already has for you. Because nothing you can do will restore you to God...nothing - not your abilities or deeds!!! Accept His offer of complete restoration. If you are sincere in accepting and receiving His offer of perfect love, He will immediately restore you legally now 100% and ²completely upon His return.

"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price (you can't buy it or earn His acceptance of you)." - Revelation 22:17 

For God to have a relationship with us in the same way the Father and the Son have with each other, we had to be like him in one essential way i.e. we had to be able to receive and return love to God like God does between and among the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit - i.e. God IS love. Love is the central and essential core of who God is!!! We are like Him i.e. we are hard wired for this same love. But love for God first, not just between each other. Our love for others must flow out of our love for God. This is why the greatest commandment is to love God first, then our neighbors. 

Does God need anything from us? No! He has Himself.

But when we say he loves us without conditions, that is not to say he doesn't have longings and desires for us and from us. He yearns to commune with us. Why? Because we are like God and God is love. He is the source of love, life, and all things and knows our greatest meaning, purpose, and joy is found only in Him!!

James 4:5 says:

"Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us' ”?

Nevertheless, His love for us is without conditions i.e. no deeds are required from us in order for His love to be set on us.

This is possible only because Christ fulfilled all the conditions ³necessary for him to love us freely and fully. Even to the point that the Father loves us in the very same way He loves His only eternally begotten Son. Jn 17:23.

"I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

So does our love and pursuit of God matter since it's not required?

While there should never be expectations or conditions put on us for the gifts freely given to us or on others for the gifts we gladly give them, it is legitimate to enjoy and eagerly anticipate the appreciation from others for those gifts.

When gratitude is shown for the gifts we graciously receive, it delights the giver because they know their gift (and love) is not just accepted but also enjoyed and appreciated.

This reminds us of the 10 lepers that Christ healed and only one returned and showed gratitude. As a result, Christ engaged him further because he demonstrated by returning to Christ that he appreciated what Christ did. Lk 17:12-19.

To hope for and enjoy someone else's appreciation for what we give them is different than demanding - or expecting - their gratitude.

This also happens to be how God loves us and enjoys a relationship with us. God doesn't demand our obedience in exchange for His love. He delights in it. We are this way because God is this way. We are in his image.

In order for him to have this kind of love relationship we had to be as much like him as much possible without actually being him.

For a further discussion on why God loves rebels but not rebellion click here 

Are we rebels against God? Click here 

For a further discussion on the solution to our rebellion click here. 
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¹Who met them? Christ!!! For only He could!

²The claims of Christ and His return!! and Knowing God but not fully yet.

³this is necessary because we fail to. No one fulfills the greatest commandment to love God with everything we are and have.

⁴ Who is "us." Is it humanity in general or us who have trusted Christ. It is both. God values all his image bearers by virtue of them being like him. But only those who accept his offer a restoration actually participate in that love.