Regardless of our behavior, God’s love for us is unconditional
When we do something nice for someone, we often expect something nice in return. And when they do something kind for us, we desire to reciprocate. It’s human nature. And if someone is mean to us, our first impulse is to respond to them likewise.
We can think of this as “equivalent retaliation,” more commonly known as tit-for-tat. In legal terms this concept of reciprocity goes by quid pro quo or “a favor for a favor.”
We apply this notion to our interactions with others and to our interactions with God. When we do good, we expect him to return the favor and do good things for us. We may even think he owes us for the way we worship him, study his word, or help others. Surely our acts of righteousness will garner his attention and produce a positive response from him.
However, when we mess up—which I too often do—our expectations of God go away. We don’t think he owes us anything. In fact, we know we deserve punishment.
Yet both these perspectives reveal that we think our relationship with God is transactional. That when we do good for him, we deserve good from him. And when we do bad things, he will ignore us or punish us. This, however, is a human mindset, not God’s character.Our relationship with God is not transactional; his love is unconditional. Click To Tweet
The truth is that there’s nothing we can do to cause him to love us any more. And there’s nothing we can do to cause him to love us any less. God’s deep love for us is unshakable. He loves us regardless of what we do, be it good or bad.
We call this undeserved love from God grace (getting good things we don’t deserve) and mercy (not getting the bad things we do deserve). God is not a tit-for-tat supernatural being. He’s not a quid pro quo type of god.
The God of the Bible is perfect, and he loves us perfectly. Our relationship with him is not transactional; his love is unconditional. Praise God.
In the book of Revelation, John shares a grand vision with an epic scope, far reaching and future focused. But before we get to that, God has some first-century messages for seven area churches. Three of these messages appear in the third chapter.
A highschool friend heard about the doctrine of eternal security—which some people shorten to the more accessible mantra of “once saved, always saved”—and latched onto it. She reasoned this creed allowed her to act any way she wanted, that she and God were in a good place in their relationship, and her behavior didn’t matter anymore.
The book of Nahum, a short three-chapter prophecy, centers on the city of Nineveh. If this city sounds familiar, if might be from the book of Jonah when God sends his prophet there to prophesy its destruction. After hearing Jonah’s blunt, half-hearted message of doom, all of Nineveh, from its king to its people, repents, and God gives them a reprieve. Jonah becomes mad and complains about this to God, almost criticizing his mercy.
The book of 
There are some people who try to earn their way into heaven. They do good and obey God’s commands – at least most of them anyway. They work hard their entire life to get God’s attention. Surely when their time comes, God will throw open the doors to heaven. With a wide smile and a gracious gesture he will say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” But he could say, “Go away, I don’t know you.” They’re really not sure. They hope they’ve been good enough, but doubt lingers.
Though this gave me pause, it quickly reminded me of opportunity. My yard represents a blank canvas, a chance to create something new. It offers a fresh start. Soon grass seed will be sown and after that, flowers and bushes and trees will make their appearance. The brown of potential will give way to the color of life. My yard will come alive, and I expect it will one day look delightful.
