While we were still sinners

When you have lived your entire Christian life with a performance-based mindset, changing your way of thinking can be difficult.

First, let me explain what I mean by performance based. This is the idea that God loves us more when we’re “good” and less when we’re “bad.”

Romans 5:8 explains, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Think about this: Before you even knew God, before you ever loved Him or did one thing to please Him, His love for you was great enough to send Jesus to the cross on your account.
What makes us think we can do anything to make Him love us more?

Perhaps because our experience with human relationships has taught us that there are limits, there are conditions to the love people give us, we expect God to treat us the same way. It’s too difficult to fathom a love so strong that someone would die for us, while at the same time grasping that we could never deserve or earn that love.

Maybe in our attempts to earn God’s love we’re really just building up our own self-esteem. If I can point to all my good works and lack of naughtiness, will you have more admiration and respect for me?

Corrie Ten Boom said that at the end of her life, she didn’t want people to comment about how good she was to God but about how good God was to her. She spent her life in service and sacrifice to her Lord, but her motivation obviously stemmed from a deep sense of gratitude for His love toward her, not a sense of obligation or an attempt to make herself look good.

Striving to be good enough will not bring you closer to God.

A life spent contemplating God’s great love leads to thankfulness, which leads to obedience, which leads to a deep abiding faith, which leads to godliness, not of our own efforts but born out of our relationship with Him.