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What if the love you most crave met you at your worst rather than your best? We walk through Romans 5 and uncover a pattern that upends instincts and expectations: God’s love finds the helpless, embraces the sinner, and reconciles the enemy—then proves it in blood. This isn’t motivational varnish or a call to try harder. It’s a rescue story where the lifeless are lifted, the guilty are pardoned, and the hostile are made family.

We thread Scripture with lived stories and hymn lines—an asylum wall that birthed a stanza, a barge on a stormy lake, firefighters who run toward flames—to show why even our finest examples of courage are only faint echoes of the cross. Paul’s tight phrases work like keys: while we were helpless, while we were sinners, while we were enemies. Add the two words that change the plot—“but God”—and assurance stops being a mood and becomes a fact. If love arrived when we deserved nothing, it will not leave when we fail again.

So we talk about receiving, not achieving. Drop the second savior of self-effort and take the gift with empty hands. Then we lean our weight on it when suffering raises hard questions, remembering that love already did the hardest thing. Along the way, we revisit classic lines—“Amazing love, how can it be”—not as nostalgia, but as theology you can sing when your courage is thin. Press play for a clear, tender tour through the gospel’s core: grace for the unworthy, security for the anxious, and hope that holds because it rests on God, not us.

If this conversation steadied you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review telling us your “but God” moment.

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Stephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback