Romans 5:8 says that God is continually recommending his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. God's love is not based upon our character or upon our performance. This is critical for the disciple to understand and to emotionally sense. The first reason is that God wants us to recognize that Christianity is not performance based and so the verse says He is continually recommending His love to us.
The second thing we should recognize is that God can distinguish between the disease of sin that we have and the person we are. Any mother can understand this principle. In other words, she loves her baby whether it has a clean diaper or not. The baby is infinitely more valuable to its mother than the mess that it makes. Any physician can tell the difference between the patient and the disease that the patient has. Likewise, God easily tells the difference between the disease of sin that we carry within (and the acts of sin we perform out) and who we really are.
The Bible teaches that God has created each person for His pleasure, and God is not allowing sin to interfere with that pleasure. It is critically important that the disciple understands this principle. Otherwise the disciple will never relax in the love of the Father. God is the great physician who can tell the difference between us and the disease of sin.
