Unconditional Love

The season between Easter and Pentecost is the time when we try and wrap our minds around the concept of the radical natureof God’s unconditional love for us. The cross reveals the extent God will go to in order to demonstrate that love.


God’s love is a gift – a free gift. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. Before we can talk about any other aspect of our faith we have to fully integrate this knowledge into every aspect of our being.

“There is nothing you can or must do to earn that relationship of solidarity with God. It has always been there. It is always there. It was there before we were old enough to do anything but cry when we were hungry or uncomfortable. It has been there through our lives. It is there when we deny it. It is there when we ignore it. It is there when we go astray and behave in ways that are painful to God, when we harm ourselves or others. It is there when we are not capable of perceiving it, as in the dementia that often accompanies old age. It is there because God has determined that it will be there. God’s presence and solidarity with us is God’s decision, demonstrated on the cross. It has nothing to do with any decision of ours. We can’t earn it. We don’t have to.

The matter is very different when we look at the divine-human relationship from the human side.

God does not force Godself upon us.

The real issue before us humans is not whether we are saved. It is whether or not we will acknowledge our salvation and work to live into it, to incorporate it into the way we live, to reap its benefits for our lives and for the world. [Liberating Christianity, Thomas C. Sorensen, p 137]