In this episode, I share more about how this truth has played out in my own life — and the steps you can take to make it real in yours.
God is Focused on Relationship–Not Performance
Not in an unhealthy way. God will never force someone to be in a relationship with Him.
As 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NLT) says, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” [Emphasis mine.]
🫶 However, God will pursue you.
One, because He loves you. (More than you can imagine.)
And two, because the primary reason you were created was for relationship with Him.
And guess what?
👉🏻 God doesn’t require you to be perfect–or to consistently perform–in order for you to be found good enough for a relationship with Him.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say otherwise.
✝️ Friend, God wants a full, eternal relationship with you–so much that He sent Jesus to die in your place, for your sins on the cross.
And Jesus, being a member of the Triune God (otherwise known as the Holy Trinity), did this willingly because He loves you just as much as God the Father does.
🌴 See, when sin entered the world back in the Garden of Eden, because Adam and Eve sinned, it created a fracture in our relationship with God.
God is holy which means He is 100% without any sin, evil, or wickedness.
But we, as humans, are born sinful. So we can’t be in God’s presence, or in that super close relationship, due our sinful state.
We also aren’t capable of fixing the situation. There’s no amount of human works that can somehow negate our sin.
❤️🔥 Now, God could’ve left us in this situation. But He didn’t. Because He loves us too much.
1 John 4:16 (NLT) says, “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”
God doesn’t just feel love as an emotion; He actually is love.
It’s part of His divine DNA–and who He is never changes.
James 1:16-17 (MSG) says, “So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.”
Lamentations 3:22 (MSG) says, “God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.”
God couldn’t stand to be separated from us. So He sent Jesus, His one and only Son, to die in our place for our sins.
Now, anyone who recognizes Jesus as having done so, declaring Him as their Lord and Savior, is then seen by God through the lens of Jesus’ sacrifice. The person is still sinful. But that person’s sins can be forgiven, and God sees her as if she were holy.
John 3:16-18 (MSG) says, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”
💯 Friend, this is not something Someone does when:
They’re harsh, cruel, distant, or fickle.
They’re focused on your perfection or performance as a prerequisite to fully experiencing their love.
💖 This is something Someone does when He loves you so much, He’s not willing to let you go.
And the path He’s created to having that full, eternal relationship with Him? It’s not something you earn. It’s a gift.
When we see God as Someone we need to appease with works or perfection, we’ll always see ourselves as unworthy to some degree.
But when we see God for who He truly is–someone who has given everything so we can fully know Him–we see ourselves as loved, chosen, and cherished just the way we are.
The Bible is full of accounts of God choosing, pursuing, and loving broken, imperfect, and sinful people. While, at the same time, being patient, kind, and gracious as they learn about who He truly is and how to relate to Him.
And through it all, His focus is primarily on relationship–not performance or perfection.
Action Step
If you want to:
Learn how to lean into His love despite feeling unworthy or not good enough
Figure out how to stop striving to earn God’s love and receive it instead
Learn more about who God truly is and how much He loves you
…then my free quiz What's Your First Step to Fully Experiencing God’s Love? is an excellent next step for you!
