To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable.
C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain presents the true nature of Love. Love does not love "tolerantly." It labours. It labours brutally, physically, arduously, tirelessly, unwaveringly. And it does so to make us lovable or lovely. R.C. Sproul also writes on this, the true nature of Love, in In Search of Dignity.
Some describe true love as 'unconditional love.' The concept can be a golden coin or a gilded rock in the frauds bag of tricks. It can ring with the clink of sound metal or echo the thud of the counterfeit mixed with dross. It is at once true and grossly false depending upon how it is understood. The preacher who smiles benignly from his pulpit assuring us that 'God accepts you just the way you are' tells a monstrous lie. He sugarcoats the gospel of love with saccharine grace. God does not accept the arrogant; He turns His back on the impenitent. He maintains love toward His fallen creatures, inviting them back to restored fellowship, but strings are securely attached as we must come on bende knee.
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