Better than Unconditional

"What's true of five-year-olds is true of all of us: we treat life as if it's our party. We want the mountain of gifts and the kudos to belong to us, not to someone else. Not even to God. Our lives are spent conspiring toward this end. God responds to our conspiring not with a gospel of 'unconditional love,' but with a gospel of 'contra-conditional love.' The idea of unconditional love suggests that he is content to love us exactly as he finds us, but that's not quite right. He loves us when he finds us, but he loves us by changing us into what he should be."

--Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love