I stumbled on this when I was casually flipping through the pages of Thaddeus Williams’s God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil (Lexham 2021:152). Justification by faith means, as it were, that we are restored into a relationship of love with God. This relationship is only possible because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). God loved us and Christ died for us when we were not lovable at all (Rom 5:8). And Paul assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God revealed in Christ our Lord (Rom 8:39). God does not lack anything, which means that he does not need our love; he is entirely sufficient in himself. But he brings us through Christ into this amazing relationship of love with him because he is love (1 John 4:8).
Do you love God? Are you enjoying him?
