Such a distorted view we often when proclaiming the gospel. We often give the impression that God was moved with sympathy toward us. God knows we'er just sheep gone astray…and out of sympathy and love for such vulnerable folks like us, He sent Jesus to give us a chance for eternal life. That is a distorted view of what salvation is.
    1. We never were just wayward “spiritual goofballs.” We were all deliberate, hopeless “enemies” of God and Christ. (Romans 5:10; Romans 3:10-18)
    2. God did not send His Son because He wanted to show sympathy. Jesus came for expressed purpose of dying in our place. (1 Timothy 1:15 -- It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; Luke 22:42 - “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will but Yours be done.”
    3. God takes the initiative in our salvation. (John 6:44 - “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Yes we like to talk about the “love” of God as if the gospel was about some sympathetic celestial grandfather, but often missing are the facts about who we are and what it took to save us rebellious sinners.

This is what today's My Utmost for His Highest points out:

“The modern view of the death of Jesus is that he died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that he bore our sins by substitution: God “made him . . . to be sin.” Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of his death is his obedience to his Father, not his sympathy with us. We are acceptable to God not because we've obeyed or promised to give up things but because of his Son's death.

We say that Jesus came to reveal the loving-kindness of God. The New Testament says that Jesus came to take away the sins of the world. Jesus never spoke of himself as one who'd been sent to reveal the Father's sympathy. Instead, he spoke of himself as a stumbling block, as someone who came to erect new standards and place new demands on all who heard his word: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin” (John 15:22). The great stumbling blocks in modern spiritual life are our Lord's character and the demands of the Spirit. We think we'd be happy if only God would stop demanding personal holiness. Maybe so, but we'd be happy on the way to hell. It is God who puts the stumbling blocks in our path, and the stumbling over them awakens us.

The idea that God died for me and therefore I go scot-free is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught is that “he died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15) and that, by identification with his death, I can be freed from sin and have his righteousness imparted to me (Galatians 2:20-21). The substitution taught in the New Testament is twofold: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” It's not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me”

The gospel tells us who God is…who we are…what God has done…and what our response must be. Never let us forget that order. It's an amazing love that God has, but that love is manifest on His terms not on our warped view of sympathy.

Thank You Lord for dying for me. Now I can better comprehend better Your amazing love. As Lehman wrote in 1953:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints' and angels' song.

Walk with the King today and be a blessing.