Does God Love Me When I Make Mistakes?
“Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:39
The short answer to the title of this devotional is, “YES! ABSOLUTELY!” God’s love for you is not based on your performance—good or bad. He loved you with an everlasting love even before you placed your faith in Jesus! (See Romans 5:8). God will never stop loving you, ever! But, a debt has to be paid off with Him, a sin debt. God can have nothing to do with sin.
However, God knew that we would sin even before He created this planet (see Romans 8:29). So what would be His answer to take care of our sin problem? It’s not a what, but a who, it’s Jesus. For Christians, the debt which had to be paid off with God is now gone! Jesus did what we could never do, and now, by our faith in Him we have access to a clean slate, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE (see Hebrews 10:10, 1 Peter 3:18).
Yes, even though your flesh still commits sins, and your unrenewed mindset might have sinful thoughts, God still loves you and you are going to heaven (see Philippians 1:6). Hard to understand, I know–but true! The Bible actually says, “God remembers your sins no more!” (See Hebrews 8:12). He chooses not to remember your wrongdoings! It also says, as long as Jesus lives you will stay saved! (See Hebrews 7:25). That’s unfathomable because Jesus won’t die again!
And that’s what God’s love for us is, unfathomable. We can’t understand His love in our finite minds, especially when we keep messing up. We think that He will leave us or He won’t love us anymore. Friend, you don’t have the ability to make God not love you—even if you hated Him.
There is a lot of false teaching out there which goes like this: “God pulls away from those who sin and from those who ‘fall back’ into a sin pattern.” This is not true, and it creates tremendous fear for Christians. This demonic lie makes us think that God’s love is conditional or that it’s contingent on our excellent behavior. There could be nothing further from the truth! We’ve been infused into Christ! (See Colossians 3:3).
So if we are in Jesus, actually inside Him, spiritually (just like a ring is inside of a ring-box) where we go, Jesus goes too, and vice versa. NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM HIM! NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING! OH…AND NOTHING! (See Romans 8:38-39).
Jesus said He will be with us always, even to the end of time (see Matthew 28:20). He didn’t say, “I’ll be with you always until you sin really bad, then I’m out.” He didn’t say, “I’m gonna stay in you, spiritually, and you in me, that is, until you miss three Sunday morning church services in a row or refuse to witness to the guy on the park bench. Shape up! Or I’m done with you!”
NO! He didn’t say that! This conditional-grace is madness and not how God has things set up! ONCE YOU HAVE CHRIST THROUGH ACCEPTING HIS FORGIVENESS–BELIEVING IT AS TRUE FOR YOUR SIN–YOU CAN’T LOSE HIM!
The grace-confused Christians who find their identity in what they do and don’t do for God will hate this idea because they don’t admire Jesus’ finished work–He’s a footnote. Instead, they find their identity in adding their works to His. Everything they do is not based on what Jesus already has done, like it should be.
They want to add to the Cross, but they can’t. They want to make sure they don’t lose their spot with God, but they can’t. No matter how much time they spend in Bible school, doing volunteer work, or singing in the choir, nothing will make God love them more than He does right now at this very moment in time. The same goes for you and me.
So today, my friends, know this: God loves you no matter what you do. He didn’t start loving you because of your good behavior, and He won’t stop loving you because of your bad behavior. He loves you because you are His child. So believer, learn more about who you are, and then be yourself. To this, you were called.
A prayer for you: Heavenly Father, thank you for teaching me that nothing I do can earn your love, and that you love me exactly as I am. Thank you for sending Jesus here to remove my sin for good, so we could finally be together forever. Right now, I lift up all who are reading this, directly to you, those who might be afraid of you. Please teach them you have no desire to punish them, but that their sins have to be forgiven through Christ. Teach them that Jesus did this for them completely, and for free. I now understand that we can’t do anything to earn your love, or to lose it, but I know we CAN grieve your Holy Spirit with our actions and attitudes. Help us not to do so by teaching us more about who we truly are! In Christ’s name I ask all these things, amen!
This devotional is from my bestselling book, 60 Days for Jesus, Volume 1. Get your copy here!