by Sabrina Stillwell
Christ Jesus showed through his life and ministry God’s unconditional, impartial love for everyone. He showed that God loved the Jews and the Gentiles, the righteous, and the sinners. One might ask, How can God love unconditionally?
The answer, to me, lies in what God sees, being Spirit and seeing only spiritually.
Genesis 1 explains that God creates and then calls His creation “very good.“ There is no mention of sin, disease, lack or limitation of any kind. God loves and delights in His lovely creation because He sees only good. That is all He created.
How can we feel God’s unconditional love for us? And how do we see that very good creation in ourselves, in others, and all around us? Jesus tells his followers that they must be like little children—humble, open, and receptive. I have a sweet little example of this. My daughter, her husband, and their four little children came to our home and they attended church with us one Sunday. My two little grandsons, William and Bennett, joined my regular Sunday school class of two little boys, Ashton and Benjamin.
During the class we talked about how noisy life can be, and if we want to hear God we need to be very quiet and listen. I shared with my little friends one of my favorite ways to listen to God. When I take a bath, I close my eyes, get very quiet and just listen. We talked about how we can all get quiet and listen to God, because God, good, is always talking to us and He has all the answers.
God loves and delights in His lovely creation because He sees only good.
Monday morning came and the family was getting ready to drive home. My two granddaughters were in the bathroom, when Bennett went in for a few minutes. When he came out, he enthusiastically told my husband, “Grandpa, Grandpa, I was quiet, I was listening to God!” Grandpa asked, “So what did God say to you Ben?“ Ben replied, “Bennett, I love you.“ (My two granddaughters later told me, he lay down in the empty bathtub!)
Here my little friend had gotten quiet and listened, and his innocent, childlike thought was receptive to God’s message of love for him. Now, it’s easy to see how God can love a sweet little child, but what about someone not so sweet?
Think of the Apostle Paul. Paul was originally a persecutor of the Christians until he truly had a “wake-up call“ from God. He then became a disciple of Jesus, and preached Christianity. He suffered throughout his discipleship (maybe because of his own guilt), but finally realized that nothing could separate him from God’s love. He wrote in Romans, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It’s easy to see how God can love a sweet little child, but what about someone not so sweet?
And I would add, not even our own mistakes, misconceptions, sins, or character flaws, can separate us from the love of God, or cause God to stop loving us. There may be times we don’t feel worthy of that love, because we’re not living up to our highest standards. But when we are open and receptive to God’s messages, divine Love corrects those sins and misconceptions. It reminds me of the shepherd’s rod and staff in Psalm 23. The rod could be used for gentle correction, and the crook could be used for pulling sheep to safety, “Here, sweetheart, come this way.” Think about David, to whom that psalm is often attributed. He made some horrible mistakes in his life. But they were firmly and gently addressed. The 23rd Psalm sings of God’s continual and unconditional love and care for the writer.
Jesus was once asked what the greatest commandment was. He replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” Love God, love others as yourself. Loving God unreservedly seems easy compared to loving myself or loving others unconditionally and unreservedly.
There’s a song by Christian musician Brandon Heath titled “Give Me Your Eyes.” The chorus reads:
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity.
It occurred to me that a definition of grace could be giving someone the space to turn around.
To see through God’s eyes, to see righteously, means to discern the truth. If we’re judging ourselves or others harshly are we seeing through the eyes of divine Love, which is the only perspective? In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy includes in her answer to the question, What is man? the phrase, “that which has not a single quality underived from Deity.” Should we then believe that we can express or see qualities underived from God, including disease, sin, mistakes, and so forth?
Let’s strive to see ourselves through God’s eyes, and be more kind and gracious to ourselves and others. It occurred to me that a definition of grace could be giving someone the space to turn around. Each one of us is working out our own salvation—striving to understand the character and nature of God and our relationship to Her. Each of us, in God’s eyes, is the beloved child of God, eternally. There is no other reality, no other record.
Several years ago, my dear mom passed away. As I prayed about missing her, I knew she was where she had always been—in the arms of Love. Then the grief left me. But, about a year later, another wave of grief came over me, a sadness that her life seemed to be filled with struggle and unfulfilled aspirations. As I listened for God’s messages, I heard, “Sweetheart, this isn’t my record of her.” I realized that God’s record of my mom, really God’s record for each one of us, includes no sorrow, pain, loss, or mistakes, because God’s view has been eternally the Genesis 1 view where, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
God sees each one of us through eyes of unconditional love and sees His perfection manifested in us, His precious babies. And every day we have the opportunity (and the ability) to see ourselves and others through these eyes of unconditional Love.
Sabrina Stillwell is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Ogden, Utah.
Unconditional love:
Science and Health:
King James Bible: