Stop Trying to Earn God’s Love
Why following Jesus means letting go of the pressure to prove yourself.
Have you ever felt like God was disappointed in you? Maybe you haven't read your Bible in a few weeks. Maybe your prayer life isn't what you think it should be. Or maybe you've fallen into that same sin you've been trying to overcome for years. You know God loves you, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder whether he's getting a little tired of your failures.
If you've ever felt that way, I have some good news for you.
God's love for you isn't based on how well you're doing at being a Christian.
That might sound obvious, but I think many of us have a harder time believing it than we'd like to admit.
The Temptation to Earn What God Gives Freely
In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul is dealing with a group of Christians who were being convinced that faith in Jesus wasn't enough for salvation. Some influential teachers were telling them that they also needed to follow certain Jewish laws, particularly the requirement of circumcision.
Now, to us, that sounds like a pretty strange argument. But for these early Christians, it was a serious issue. Circumcision had been a sign of God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants for hundreds of years. These teachers weren't simply inventing rules. They were holding on to something that had once been essential to identifying God's covenant people.
But Jesus had changed everything.
Through his death and resurrection, salvation was now available to everyone who placed their faith in him. They didn't need to become Jewish first. They didn't need to undergo a procedure or prove themselves through obedience to the law. They just needed Jesus.
Paul makes this clear in Galatians 5:6:
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love."
I think there's an important distinction here that we need to understand.
It's faith working through love that matters, not you working hard enough to earn God's love.
We may not be arguing about circumcision today, but we still struggle with the same temptation. We tell ourselves that once we finally overcome that one sin, we'll be a better Christian. We imagine that if we pray more, read the Bible more, give more money, or serve more often, God will be a little more pleased with us. And when we don't do those things, we start to feel like something has changed in our relationship with him. But that's not how grace works.
You cannot earn something that God has already freely given you.
Your salvation doesn't depend on how much money you give, how many hours you serve, how often you open your Bible, or how successfully you've managed to overcome sin.
It depends on Jesus.
And when we begin depending on our own efforts to secure God's love, we're actually moving away from the very grace that brought us into a relationship with him in the first place.
Be Careful Who You're Listening To
Paul doesn't just challenge the false teaching. He also challenges the Galatian Christians for allowing themselves to be influenced by it.
He asks them in Galatians 5:7:
"You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?"
Paul compares the Christian life to running a race. The Galatians had been doing well, but someone had gotten in their way and sent them in the wrong direction. And Paul wanted them to recognize who was responsible.
I think this part of Galatians is especially relevant to Christians today. In Paul's day, false teachers had to physically travel to a community and convince people to listen to them. If the church recognized the problem, they could confront those teachers and remove their influence. Today, the people influencing our beliefs don't even have to leave their homes.
They live in our pockets.
Think about how much time we spend listening to podcasts, watching videos, scrolling social media, and consuming news. Every day, we're exposed to people telling us what to believe, how to think, what to value, and how to live. Some of those voices are genuinely helpful. Others are slowly pulling us away from the truth of Scripture. And the dangerous part is that we might not even realize it's happening.
Paul warns that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9). In other words, a seemingly small influence can eventually affect everything.
So here's a question worth asking:
Who is shaping the way you think about God, yourself, and the world around you?
Take a look at the people you follow online. Think about the podcasts you listen to or the news sources you regularly consume. Are those voices helping you become more like Jesus? Are they encouraging you to love others, trust God, and live according to Scripture? Or are they making you more fearful, angry, judgmental, or distracted from what actually matters? And if you have children, it's worth asking the same questions about the voices influencing them.
We need to take responsibility for what we're allowing into our minds and homes.
That doesn't mean we should only listen to people who agree with us about everything. But it does mean we should evaluate what we're hearing against the truth of God's Word. Sometimes following Jesus means recognizing that a voice we've grown comfortable listening to is actually leading us in the wrong direction.
And sometimes we need to stop listening.
Freedom Doesn't Mean Doing Nothing
There's one more important point Paul makes in this passage. If our good works don't earn our salvation, does that mean our actions don't matter?
Not at all.
Paul writes in Galatians 5:13:
"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."
This is one of the most beautiful things about the Christian life.
We don't have to obey God to earn his love. We're free to obey him because we already have it.
We don't serve others to earn a place in God's family. We serve because we're already part of his family.
And we don't fight against sin because we're terrified that God will abandon us if we fail. We fight against sin because we know it hurts us, damages our relationships, and keeps us from experiencing the kind of life God wants for us.
Grace doesn't make good works unnecessary. It gives them an entirely different purpose. Through the Holy Spirit, God gives us the power to turn away from sin and love others well. And those things matter, not because they earn us salvation, but because they allow us to experience more of the life Jesus came to give us.
So What Should We Do?
I want to encourage you to do two things this week.
First, identify the lies you've been believing about God's love.
Maybe you've convinced yourself that God is disappointed in you because you haven't prayed enough. Maybe you feel like you've failed too many times for him to keep forgiving you. Or maybe you've been measuring your spiritual health by how many religious activities you can fit into your schedule. Whatever it is, begin reminding yourself of the truth.
God's love isn't something you achieve. It's something you receive through faith in Jesus.
Second, take an honest look at the voices influencing your life.
Think about the people and media you regularly consume. If you're unsure whether a particular influence is helping or hurting your faith, talk about it with someone you trust. Spend time in Scripture and compare what you're hearing with what God has said. And if you recognize something that's consistently leading you away from the truth, be willing to let it go.
Following Jesus isn't about working hard enough to convince God to love you. It's about trusting that he already does, because of what Jesus has done, and allowing that love to transform the way you live.
You are free from having to earn God's love. Now you're free to live in response to it.