Conditionally, unconditional?

God's sovereignty, His love, His power... it's all amazing, and incredibly complex to the point we cannot wrap our tiny brains around it. One aspect I want to give some clarity on is His love. Is it conditional? Unconditional? Let's talk.

It wasn't too long ago that there was a tweet that went viral that caused this topic to rattle around in my brain.

As a Christian, it can be tough to see your God slammed by those around you when you know His love, grace, and mercy, and you know He is not what they believe He is. It's also heartbreaking because you long to see those people become followers of Christ and realize how incredible it is. With that being said, when I read the tweet, and saw all of the favorites, retweets, and fellow Twitter users agreeing with the author, I felt frustrated because I knew that the tweet was a false representation of God, and I felt sadness because of all the souls that view God in this way.

The tweet that stirred up all of these emotions went along the lines of, "You follow a god who loves you unconditionally, but only under certain conditions.. sounds legit."

If you are a Christian, hopefully you understand my eagerness to explain how false that statement is. And if you're a non-believer, that tweet may resonate with you, and I get it. I'll be frank, I understand why people see God this way, I understand why people hate Him, I understand why people feel like it's dumb to give up their life to live for Him. I get it. But I'm also hoping to explain, gracefully, to those in that boat that the God you feel this way about is nothing like you think. Once you've experienced the supernatural love and saving grace of God you realize that what you thought about Him before was Satan's way of turning you off to Christ (which I sincerely hope and pray that you will experience. Just open your heart to Him and cry out to Him; let the Holy Spirit work in your heart).

But until that day comes, it can be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to see God for who He is... which is why I don't want to come off as a judgemental Christian invalidating non-believer's opinions. Simply, I hope to explain why I disagree with that tweet in the most simple and relatable way possible.

First things first...

God loves you unconditionally. Period. End of story.

Unfortunately, there are people who do not put their faith in Him, and do not experience the fullness of His love. This also ends in tragedy- eternal separation and wrath from God once they die. So how can I say God loves you, but also punishes? Shouldn't everyone go to Heaven if He loves everyone? (That's a loaded question with multiple part answers. For today's sake, I'm going to focus on one aspect, rather than diving too deep too quickly).

Here's my nerdy analogy & explanation that you will hopefully relate to...

While I understand that not everyone's childhood was the same, I want us to put our personal experiences aside for a moment, and simply examine the principles of parenting. In a healthy parent-child relationship they love each other, the parents provide a safe and healthy life for their child, and their child returns the favor by obedience and love. Part of the parental love is discipline, or the "conditions." To the young child, being put in time-out for something they did wrong, or ignoring their parents, may seem mean and unwarranted. At times, the child may even think their parents hate them and could not possibly love them because they keep disciplining them. That could not be farther from the truth. It is because the parents love their child that they discipline them. It is because of their love for their child that they set these "conditions," (guidelines, rules, and consequences) for the child. They say that there's no love like a love for your own child. It's unconditional.

Let's parallel that into God's love.

God is our Heavenly Father.

As our earthly fathers love us unconditionally (or whomever raised you), God also loves us unconditionally.

With this love, comes "conditions," namely discipline, guidelines, rules, and consequences, all created from love.

Let's summarize.

Parents love their child unconditionally, but there are things that the child may do that the parents will not condone.

God loves us unconditionally, but there are things that we do that He does not condone. These are the so-called, conditions that the tweet author spoke of.

To wrap up...

I hope this quick comparison helped clarify why I as a Christian freaked out a bit when I read that tweet. Satan paints a hateful, strict, vengeful, angry, psychotic picture of God to the world. I understand why there's misunderstandings about God's love and what it means to follow Him.

I just want to remind believers that He does love you unconditionally, but that does not mean we have the go-ahead to sin whenever we want because we are forgiven through Christ's life, death, and resurrection.

And I want to open the minds and eyes of non-believers to the fact that God loves you, even if you do not love Him, and He wants nothing more than for you to come to Him, and surrender your life to His love. He is not what Satan has convinced you He is. I would even argue that true followers of Christ are thankful for these "conditions" that God has for us because when we are shown our faults, it drives us closer to Christ and strengthens our relationship with Him.

His love is like nothing you've ever experienced before. I pray that you will cry out to Him, and ask the Holy Spirit to come into your heart, and to show you the overwhelming love of God.

Disclaimer: God's Fatherly relationship with us is far more complex than I am making it, and there's more to His love than I am showing here. It is not simply guidelines, rules, and discipline. However, for the sake of this analogy those are the parts of His love I am using.