August 31, 2025
I was a pretty well-behaved kid, at least I think so. But sometimes I got in trouble. Sometimes I didn’t do my chores. Sometimes I didn’t clean out the cat litter: and that was my job, because the cat was mine. Sometimes I got in yelling matches with my brothers. I was Catholic, so I went to confession once in a while, where you tell the priest your sins. I would tell him my sins. Then he might ask a question. After that he would give me my penance. It might be, “Say three hail Mary prayers.” Or something like that. It was a pretty easy penance. I remember thinking, the priest should have given me a worse punishment! Are you kidding? Three hail Mary’s won’t make up for what I did! I thought I should really have to pay!
We learn as kids that our behavior matters, it’s a serious matter! You’d better behave, or what will people think of you?! You’d better be nice, or no one will want to be your friend. Our behavior mattered to our teachers and parents. So, it’s natural to think, my behavior must matter to God. I bet when God thinks about me, he looks at me according to how good I’ve been. Certainly, in our culture, there’s a thought, if you don’t perform well, things won’t go well for you. You’ve got to perform well at school, at work, in your relationships, in your marriage, or you won’t have a good life. We feel we have to behave well and perform well. You might never ever have experienced love that was not based somewhat on how you perform!
My thoughts about me, and what other people think of me and the way the world looks at me, so often revolve around the word, “do.” Do I do the right things? Am I doing enough? So, we tend to think, “God looks at me according to what I do.” But what if that’s wrong? What if God doesn’t look at you based on your performance? What if God doesn’t think about you the way you think about you?
Here’s what God thinks about when He thinks about you. He loves you and He couldn’t love you more! Nothing you do, have done, or will do in the future could make him love you less. God loves you no matter what you’ve done. God does not love you because of what you’ve done.
God loves you unconditionally! There’s nothing you can do to make him love you less. God loves you no matter what you do! That is mind blowing!
Jesus loved people unconditionally. There are four gospels in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and they tell the story of Jesus lives. In the gospels there were two groups of people Jesus interacted with: the law keepers and the law breakers. The law keepers were some of the religious leaders, who felt like they were close to God because they did everything right. They were arrogant! They loved people based on what they did, how they performed. But if love is conditional, is it even love?
Then there were the law breakers. These were people who felt like God might not love them because they did most things wrong. Both the law keepers and law breakers were wrong. Because they thought God’s opinion about them was based on their behavior! Jesus did everything in his power to explain to them, you’ve got it all wrong. What God thinks about when he sees you and me is that he loves us!
One example Jesus used was the story of the lost son. It was a parable, a made-up story Jesus told to prove a point. It goes; a father has two sons. And his younger son asks his dad to give him his inheritance NOW, so he can have lots of money to go spend anyway he wants! His Dad is a softie and says, “Sure.” The son takes the money and leaves home to go party!. Soon the money is all gone, his friends leave him, and he has to get a job feeding pigs. He realizes things were better at home! Here he is starving in a job that pays almost nothing. He decides to go back home and ask for a job from his father. The son doesn’t expect to be treated like a son anymore! He just wants to be a servant.
All this time his father has been looking for him, and when he sees his son coming, he runs to hug and kiss him! The son says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” The Father doesn’t see it that way! He kills the fatted calf and throws a big feast to celebrate, because his son was lost, but now he is found!
Who is the lawbreaker in this story? The prodigal son! The father in the story represents God, who loves his prodigal son who acted terribly, wasted his inheritance, and broke his father’s heart! Just like the father the loves his prodigal son unconditionally, God loves you and me unconditionally! What God thinks about when he sees you and me is that he loves us!
The law keeper in the story is the older son, who always does everything right, and refuses to go to the party for his ungrateful, wasteful, and inconsiderate brother. Who would want to go to that party? God would. Because God loves everybody regardless!
When it came to the law keepers and lawbreakers, Jesus liked the lawbreakers better. Which seems strange: they are the misbehavers! They are the wrongdoers. But Jesus liked them best, I think because they knew they sinned! They were sorry. The prodigal son had gained the humility to say, “I’ve done wrong. I don’t deserve to be treated as your son.” The law keepers that made Jesus so angry were the ones who found fault with Jesus and other people all the time! You know, we’ve all sinned. Jesus didn’t like hypocrisy where people think they are better than others and that God loves them the most!
It’s crazy when you understand, God knows your sin, and He loves you anyway! Unconditionally. And when you understand deep down how much God loves you, it changes you. You look at people differently and forgive them faster. You look at a person and see someone God loves so much, he sent Jesus to die for him! You look at your family different, because we’re all hopeless and God loves us all! You look at people who are ethnically different than you, who speak a different language, people who are different from you in every way. And you feel love!
My challenge for you is to consider forgiving yourself, or someone else. God loves you no matter what! So, consider who you might forgive! Maybe you did something that you think 3 Hail Marys won’t cover. Forgive yourself anyway!
God couldn’t love us more, even though we’re all sinners. God offers salvation to anyone who seeks him! God doesn’t love you because of what you do or don’t do. What God thinks about when he sees you or me is that he loves us! Amen.
Maureen Duffy-Guy's blog 