Our hearts are subtle and mysterious realms, swept over by the storms of grand emotions.

Why is it that the same offensive words from the lips of a friend can be more easily forgiven than when uttered by a person outside the orbit of our love?

Love holds within it the quality of grace, both when we receive it from the Father, and when we extend it to His children. God chose to love us “while we were yet sinners”—to extend His grace in spite of our offensiveness. But we routinely show that grace to only those who love us in return.

The difference lies in God’s amazing decision to love the entire world as though we had always been His friends. He sovereignly declares that all His children can also be His friends because of Jesus’ sacrifice: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor 5:19).

Can loving God expand the orbit of our love? How do we learn God’s graciousness for those who never earned our care—or even wounded us in spite?

We pray for God’s own love to take from us our stony hearts, and give us His great, principled affection for those who still offend us. God’s daily miracle of grace gives each of us—and everyone—the fullness of forgiving love.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott