God doesn’t love us when we are good. In fact, no matter how good we think we are, it will never measure up to what Jesus said is good. Actually, when Jesus was called good, He said that only God was truly good (Mark 10:18). So if only God is good, where does that leave us? That alone proves God doesn’t love us when we are good because we can never be good enough.
If you place your confidence in your ability to be a good person worthy o... moreBy Ed Elliott
Why Can God Love Wicked and Evil People?
God doesn’t love us when we are good. In fact, no matter how good we think we are, it will never measure up to what Jesus said is good. Actually, when Jesus was called good, He said that only God was truly good (Mark 10:18). So if only God is good, where does that leave us? That alone proves God doesn’t love us when we are good because we can never be good enough.
If you place your confidence in your ability to be a good person worthy of being loved by God, you are misplacing your confidence. Plus, it shows you misunderstand who God is. His ability to love you isn’t based on your character or lack of it. Love is who God is; it isn’t what He does. His very self and existence are wrapped up in love. His life and actions define who He is and what love is like. Jesus shocked His disciples and the religious leaders of His day when He said that God is kind to the unthankful and evil (Luke 6:35). What many don’t know is God’s kindness has a very specific purpose when it is experienced.
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).
Paul, who wrote this passage, is actually speaking from personal experience. He was a well-known enemy of God who had believers tortured, killed, and imprisoned. Then one day, on his way to Damascus to have more believers arrested, Jesus appeared to Him. Jesus let him know that the persecution he was bringing to the church was all about Him. Jesus took the persecution personally. What transacted from this encounter with Jesus is testified in Paul’s letter to Titus.
For we too once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various sinful desires and pleasures, spending and wasting our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the goodness and kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared [in human form as the Man, Jesus Christ], He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but because of His own compassion and mercy, by the cleansing of the new birth (spiritual transformation, regeneration) and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we would be justified [made free of the guilt of sin] by His [compassionate, undeserved] grace, and that we would be [acknowledged as acceptable to Him and] made heirs of eternal life [actually experiencing it] according to our hope (His guarantee). (Titus 3-7 AMP)
Loving our enemies pays off as it did with Paul who ended up writing two-thirds of the New Testament.
