God's Unconditional Love Exceeds Even Pets' Devotion

Pet owners often speak of the way their pets love them unconditionally. Well, not quite—continued abuse or neglect can make an animal fearful, or even hostile. But the kind of love pets often offer can remind us that in God we find truly unconditional love. The apostle Paul taught that rebellious humans on their own couldn’t close the gap between them and God. Only God could do that—and God did it! Scholar N. T. Wright wrote: “When we look at Jesus, the Messiah, we are looking at the one who embodies God’s own love, God’s love-in-action. Look at [Romans 5,] verse 8. What Paul says here makes no sense unless Jesus, in his life and death, was the very incarnation, the ‘enfleshment’ (that’s what ‘incarnation’ means) of the living, loving God…. If the death of the Messiah shows how much God loves us, that can only be because the Messiah is the fully human being (how much more human can you get than being crucified?) in whom the living God is fully present.” *

• Scholar William Barclay wrote, “The coming of Christ and the death of Christ, is the proof of God’s love. Sometimes the thing is stated as if on the one side there was a gentle, loving Christ, on the other an angry and vengeful God; and as if Christ did something which changed God’s attitude to [people]. Nothing could be further from the truth…. Jesus did not come to change God’s attitude to [people]; he came to show what it is and always was.” ** Paul knew God did not have to be “talked into” saving you (as he wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Paul had hated the people who said Jesus was the Messiah, had jailed and even executed some of them (cf. Acts 26:9-11). But Jesus still loved him, and sought him out on the road to Damascus (cf. Acts 26:12-19). Jesus’ unconditional love totally transformed his life for the better. Do you join Paul in trusting and following Jesus and surrendering your heart to his love?