We Are More Than Conquerors!

Recently I heard someone giving a word of encouragement to a friend by telling him, “We are more than conquerors!”

The man who was giving the encouragement was referring to a Bible verse. The verse is found in Romans 8:37. It says, “…[I]n all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

The larger context of the passage is describing God’s extraordinary, unconditional, never-ending love for His children. The passage gives the wonderful assurance that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.

And because of this persistent love of God we can conquer any trouble which comes our way. But the phrase I mentioned earlier is actually even a bit more inspiring and exciting because we are not just conquerors when it comes to the challenges we face, rather God’s unstoppable love makes us MORE than conquerors!

With His love, our ability to conquer the forces that intend to defeat us goes above and beyond.

This is so good it is almost hard for me to believe. In fact, I had to go back and re-read this post because I surprised myself with the encouragement God gives. But I certainly am grateful it is true!

The Extraordinary Reality of God's Unfailing Love

It’s difficult for us to understand that God’s love for us is not conditional because our experience in life is that love always has some type of conditions attached.  So for example, no matter how much someone loves us we are capable of behaving in such a way that the person could possibly reach a point of exasperation and basically say, “I can’t take it anymore.  I’m done with you and your stuff!”

If a person can say “I’m done with you,” and exclude you from his/her life then the person’s love was conditional.  And by the way, I’m not being critical of this fact I’m suggesting we can all understand such a reality.

But this is why it is extraordinary to think that we cannot do something to make God reach a boiling point at which He says, “I can’t take it anymore.  I’m done with you and your stuff!”

God doesn’t love us when we finally get our act together in such a way that we deserve His love.  He loves us, first.  He loves us before we ever do the right thing.  He loves us even if we never do the right thing.

Please understand, it is obviously good for us to do the right thing.  God wants us to do the right thing.  This post is not an attempt to encourage people to do the wrong thing.  The point I’m trying to make has to do with God’s unconditional love.  His love is not based on whether we do the right thing.  This incredible truth is made known to us through verses like this one found in Romans 5:8…

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

No one will ever love you the way God loves you.  His love is complete, total, perfect and unfailing.  The more I understand this truth the more it makes me want to love Him back.

Jasper's Conditional Love

Jasper put his head in my lap and looked at me, lovingly, with his big brown eyes.  It almost seemed he was ready to say something.

“What is it, Jasper?  What do you want to say?” I asked, petting the top of his head.

I believe the desire was there—he truly wanted to verbalize a thought—it was on the tip of his long tongue… but he just couldn’t form the words.

One of the things that draw people to dogs is that they appear to extend unconditional love to us.  That’s a tremendously attractive quality.  Jasper’s love, however, is conditional and he really does not attempt to hide that fact.  With Jasper, it is a blatantly conditional love that comes my way.

You see, I was eating some Fritos (no, not sliced apples, it was Fritos) and that’s why Jasper was giving me the time of day.  He gazed at me with rapt attention, occasionally licking my hand or nuzzling his head against my leg.

And, of course, soon the bag of Fritos was gone.  But guess what?

Jasper still sat with his head in my lap!

I scratched behind his ear and let out a contented chuckle.  “Perhaps he loves me more than I realized,” came the pleasant thought.

It turns out, though, there was a small piece of Fritos sticking to the upper part of my pant leg.  Jasper ate it and walked away.  After all, Nadia had some sour cream and onion potato chips.

God Is The Source of Love

When the Bible says that God is love it’s not trying to help us understand that if we love God then He will love us back.  What it is saying is that love is part of the very nature of God and, therefore, all true love has God as its source. This is why we can know with confidence that God loves us unconditionally.  This is extraordinarily good news!

Thanks Brennan Manning For Helping Me Understand God's Love

Many years ago, I was in a small group with a few other men. At one point in this group, we listened to some

talks by a Christian teacher named Brennan Manning.  I had not heard of Brennan, yet, at this time. In these recorded talks Brennan said something that touched me deeply.  He said, “God loves you.” 

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I had heard people say, “God loves you,” before this time.  But in my mind, it was always said in a qualified way, for instance, “God loves you! …But remember, you still have to obey Him.”

Even though I grew up in a loving Christian church with terrific people, I had never heard (or at least it seemed to me that I had never heard) someone have the audacity to just say, “God loves you,” [period].  Without some type of qualifier.

Believe it or not, this was a big deal for me. 

I listened to the talks thinking:  “Wait a minute, God loves me without some type of qualifier having to be added to the statement?!?  Wow!”

I just learned, this morning, that Brennan has died.  I believe I’ll have an opportunity to thank him for his teaching, some day, when I pass over to the other side. But for now, I’ll write it here:  “Thanks, Brennan, for the incredible gift of helping me understand that God loves me.”

…Without qualifiers.

The Truth of God's Love Can Be Hard To Believe

It’s interesting that—in counseling sessions—I never have to convince people that they’ve messed up, made mistakes, caused pain, and committed sins.  They’re always willing to admit that truth.  But I find that I do have to convince people that God really and truly loves them in spite of their sins.  That seems to be the more challenging truth for people to accept.

Relax, You Don't Have To Earn God's Love

No matter how well we know that God loves us unconditionally, it is still hard for us to avoid the impulse to try to “earn” His love.  Something deep within us believes that we must “perform” properly in order to be loved.  So the message for today is simple:  Relax, you don’t have to earn it, you don’t have to perform properly, God already loves you.

It's Not As Easy As It Sounds: Unconditional Love

The most authentic and most Godly form of love is love that is given “unconditionally”.  Unconditional love does not mean that we condone everything that the loved one does, but it does mean that we love and accept the person in spite of what he does.  Unconditional love is much easier to talk about than to actually do because people have this pesky habit of testing the limits of our love.