The Love of God

"But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them." (Ps 103:17,18

Just a few questions.

Is grace conditional? (By definition it is unconditional.) Can the love that extends grace (John 3:16) be conditional? Is the Psalm telling us how we earn God's mercy, or is it describing the person to whom God has shown mercy? (A subtle distinction.) Does He love us because we love Him, or do we love Him because He first loved us? Why do some Calvinists who say they believe in Sovereign Grace treat a passage of Scripture as though they were Arminians by insisting for that God's love is conditional?

The Christan life is lived the same way we first came to Him, by faith and in response to a love totally undeserved and therefore of necessity unconditional with regard to anything we can do.

I don't see any way you can make God's love conditional without making the Christian life one of legalism and not of grace. It is the grace of God that teaches us how to live the Christan life (Titus 2).

Kyrie eleison!

~ The Billy Goat ~