The smaller you get__he smaller life makes you__he easier it is to see the grandeur of grace. While I am far more incapable than I may have initially thought, God is infinitely more capable than I ever hoped.

God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace.~Quote by Brennan Manning

The only 'if' the Gospel knows is this: 'if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' (1 John 2:1)

The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God; it's a witness to God making it down to the worst people. Far from being a book full of moral heroes whom we are commanded to emulate, what we discover is that the so-called heroes in the Bible are not really heroes at all. They fall and fail; they make huge mistakes; they get afraid; they're selfish, deceptive, egotistical, and unreliable. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness.

God attaches no strings to His love. None. His love for us does not depend on our loveliness. It goes one way. As far as our sin may extend, the grace of our Father extends further.

One-way love is rare, though, and it always comes as a surprise. Fortunately, the glimpses we receive in relationships are only a foreshadowing of God's love for us. They are like little arrows that point to the very heart of the universe, what Dante called 'the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars,' the love that received its fullest expression in the person and work of Jesus Christ.