August 25, when God's love is sweetest, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church

and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of

water with the Word, Ephesians 5, 25, and 26. If you only hope for unconditional love from God,

your hope is great but too small. Unconditional love from God is not the sweetest experience of his love.

The sweetest experience is when his love says, I have made you so much like my son that I

delight to see you and be with you. You are a pleasure to me because you are so radiant with

my glory. This sweetest experience is conditional on our transformation into the kind of people whose

emotions and choices and actions please God. Unconditional love is the source and foundation of

the human transformation that makes the sweetness of conditional love possible. If God did not love

us unconditionally, he would not penetrate our unattractive lives, bring us to faith,

unite us to Christ, give us his spirit and make us progressively like Jesus.

But when he unconditionally chooses us and sends Christ to die for us and regenerates us,

he puts in motion an unstoppable process of transformation that makes us glorious.

He gives us a splendor to match his favorite kind, his own. We see this in Ephesians 5, 25 to 27,

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her unconditional love, that he might sanctify

her and present the church to himself in splendor the condition in which he delights.

It is unspeakably wonderful that God would unconditionally set his favor on us while we are

still unbelieving sinners. The ultimate reason this is wonderful is that this unconditional love

brings us into the everlasting enjoyment of his glorious presence. But the apex of that enjoyment

is that we not only see his glory but also reflect it. The name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified

in you and you in him, 2nd Thessalonians 1, verse 12.