God’s love in a fallen world

Saved Sounds

Any Man - Asha Elia, TKE3

“and when I speak He replies to me”

By The Water - Sondae

The Garden Before the Fall

You know, I often think about what it must’ve felt like to love God before the world fell apart.

Before pain, before loss, before our hearts learned what it meant to break.

When love was still simple — uncorrupted, undivided, and whole.

In the beginning, humanity walked with God in a love so pure, so complete, that there was no separation between the Lover and the beloved. There was no guessing, no striving, no trying to prove one’s worth. Just being in love — because love Himself was near.

It’s hard for us to imagine now, because we live in a world that has made love a transaction.

A thing to earn.

A thing to keep.

A thing to lose.

But in Eden, love wasn’t earned — it was inherited. It was the air they breathed, the water that ran through the rivers, the sound that filled the trees. It was God.

And yet… love gave them a choice.

Because true love always does.

God gave humanity free will — not as a loophole, but as proof of His desire for real relationship. You can’t force love; you can only invite it.

He could’ve made us like robots — perfectly obedient, perfectly controlled — but He didn’t. He gave us the dignity to decide.

And that decision… it changed everything.

Because when Adam and Eve reached for the fruit, they weren’t just breaking a rule — they were redefining love. They were saying, “We’d rather choose ourselves.”

And from that moment, the world learned what love without God feels like.

Pain entered the story.

Suffering became a shadow that touched every generation after them.

Not because God stopped loving us — but because we stepped outside of perfect love.

Genesis 3 says:

“To the woman He said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing…’

To Adam He said, ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life… By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’”

This wasn’t God punishing humanity — it was love grieving.

It was love allowing the consequence of choice.

It was love saying, “You wanted to know what life apart from Me feels like — now you will see.”

But here’s the mystery: even in the fall, love didn’t leave.

The moment sin entered the world, love began chasing us again.

Through the sound of the wind in the garden, through the covenant with Abraham, through the cries of prophets, through a cross on a hill called Calvary — love has been trying to bring us home.

And that’s where the tension lies.

We live between Eden and eternity — between what was lost and what is being restored.

And in that space, the world keeps redefining love — twisting it, softening it, breaking it down into something comfortable, something cheap.

But the love of God?

It’s not cheap.

It’s costly.

It’s holy.

It’s just.

And it’s eternal.

So today, as we begin this conversation about God’s love versus the love of a fallen world, I want to start here — at the beginning — with the truth that love was never the problem.

Our understanding of it was.

Section 1: Free Will — The Divine Gift with Consequences

“Let’s start with free will. Norman Warren says it clearly:

‘God gave humans free will as a precious gift, enabling us to love voluntarily rather than as programmed robots.’

That’s profound — because love, to be real, must be a choice.

Our ability to choose—love or rejection, obedience or sin—is central to how God designed our relationship with Him.

But the flip side of that freedom is suffering. Lucas Leys puts it this way:

‘Suffering often stems from human sin — people making choices that hurt themselves and others, such as through destructive actions like drunk driving or broader acts of evil that cause widespread pain.’

This is the great tension of divine love:

God created us free, and that freedom is beautiful — but it also carries real consequence.

He could have made us robots who obey without question. But that wouldn’t be love; that would be control.

So instead, He gave us the ability to choose, even when that means choosing against Him.

And that choice introduced suffering into the story of creation.

But here’s where we see the character of God — He didn’t withdraw. He didn’t say, “You made your bed; lie in it.”

He stayed. He entered. He redeems.

Now let’s look at Romans 8:18–23, where Paul puts words to this tension:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Now, some context:

Romans was written by the Apostle Paul — a man who knew suffering intimately.

By the time he wrote this letter, Paul had endured imprisonment, persecution, beatings, rejection, and loneliness — all for the gospel.

He wrote this letter to the early church in Rome — a community of believers living under the shadow of the Roman Empire, facing political pressure, cultural hostility, and growing persecution.

So when Paul talks about “the sufferings of this present time,” he’s not theorizing — he’s testifying.

He’s reminding the early Church that suffering is not evidence of God’s absence. It’s evidence of creation’s brokenness and God’s plan for restoration.

Notice the words groaning and hope.

Even creation — nature itself — is pictured as waiting, groaning, longing for redemption.

This shows us something extraordinary: suffering is not the final word. It’s the echo of Eden’s loss and the birth pangs of eternity.

Theological insight:

When Paul says creation was “subjected to futility,” he’s referring to the curse introduced in Genesis 3 — the result of humanity’s rebellion.

But he doesn’t stop there. He says creation was subjected in hope — meaning that even the consequences of sin exist under God’s sovereign plan for redemption.

God didn’t lose control in the garden; He began a rescue.

Metaphor:

Think of a parent teaching their child to ride a bike.

The parent could hold on forever, preventing every fall — but then the child would never learn to balance, never grow, never experience freedom.

Love allows risk.

And even when the child falls, the parent runs to pick them up, wipe the tears, and say, “Let’s try again.”

That’s what divine love looks like: freedom with faithfulness, consequence with compassion.

Reflection:

“I think about how often I’ve asked God to take away my ability to choose — to just make me do the right thing, to make life easier.

But then I realize, that’s not love.

Love without choice isn’t love at all.

And even when my choices have led to pain, God has never left the scene. He has always turned my groaning into growth, and my suffering into something that points me back to Him.”

Section 2: Suffering as a Purifying Instrument

“Now that we’ve spoken about free will and the consequences that come with it, I want to lean into one of the hardest truths about God’s love — that it often refines through pain.

Because love that only comforts isn’t complete. Real love — divine love — also purifies.

Rich Castro once wrote:

‘Importantly, suffering occurs within God’s sovereign control, and is not random, but potentially purposeful. God allows suffering because He loves us and is seeking our ultimate best.’

That line has stuck with me because it reframes pain.

It tells us that God’s love isn’t fragile — it’s fierce enough to transform us.

Let’s read this together from James 1:2–4:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Now, here’s something I love about Scripture: the who and the why behind it always add weight to the what.

James, the man writing this letter, was the half-brother of Jesus — same mother, different fathers. And what’s wild is that James didn’t even believe in Jesus during His ministry.

John 7:5 literally says, “For even His brothers did not believe in Him.”

So imagine this — James goes from being a skeptic to a man so radically convinced of the resurrection that he becomes a pillar in the early church. He eventually leads the church in Jerusalem — the very heart of persecution. History tells us he was known as James the Just, a man of prayer whose knees were calloused from hours spent interceding for believers.

So when James says “count it all joy when you face trials,” this isn’t poetic theory. This is a man who’s seen suffering up close — who’s watched his brothers and sisters scattered, beaten, imprisoned, and martyred for their faith.

And yet, he calls it joy.

Why? Because he’s seen what it produces.

The Greek word James uses for “testing” here is dokimion, which means “the process by which something’s genuineness is proven.”

It’s the same word used for refining gold — where heat exposes impurities, and what’s left is pure, unbreakable, and radiant.

That’s the metaphor I want you to hold in your heart today: you are gold in the hands of a refining God.

He’s not burning you; He’s purifying you.

He’s not destroying you; He’s developing you.

When gold enters the fire, it loses what it was never meant to keep — the dirt, the excess, the unnecessary — so it can reveal what it truly is.

That’s what God’s love does in suffering.

Theological insight:

Suffering is not a flaw in God’s love; it’s a function of it.

It’s His way of aligning us with His holiness, carving out idols, and teaching us endurance that comfort could never create.

We see this echoed throughout Scripture — in 1 Peter 1:7, Peter writes:

“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.”

Even Peter — the man who denied Jesus — understood this kind of transformation.

Because grace doesn’t just forgive; it refines.

Reflection:

“I remember seasons where I thought, ‘God, this is too much. I can’t do this anymore.’

And yet, those were the exact seasons where I saw His hand the clearest.

Because fire has a way of revealing presence.

You can’t see God’s nearness when everything’s easy — but in the heat, in the breaking, in the refining, suddenly you realize… He’s right there, shaping you.”

God’s love isn’t passive. It’s active.

It’s love that risks our comfort to secure our character.

Love that allows momentary pain for eternal glory.

Like the goldsmith who refuses to remove the metal from the fire until he can see his reflection in it — God will keep refining until His image is visible in you.

So when James says, “Count it all joy,” he’s not saying celebrate the pain — he’s saying celebrate what the pain is producing.

Because even in the fire, God is forming something sacred.

Section 3: God’s Justice and Love Amid Injustice

“Let’s talk about something that sits at the very core of this question:

If God is love — if He’s good and just — then why does injustice exist?

Why do the wicked seem to prosper while the righteous suffer?

Why does He allow pain to touch people who love Him?

These are not new questions. They’ve echoed through every generation of believers since the beginning of time.

And yet, Scripture never dodges them.

John Miley puts it beautifully:

‘Justice and moral responsibility are essential in God’s governance. A world where all are treated equally regardless of actions would undermine justice.’

In other words — love without justice wouldn’t be love at all.

Because true love must hate what destroys the beloved.

It must confront sin.

It must allow consequence.

Let’s read Romans 8:28:

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

Now before we pull this verse apart, I want to give you context — because this line didn’t come from a man sitting in peace and comfort.

It came from the Apostle Paul, writing to the believers in Rome, around AD 57.

At that time, the Roman church was facing division — Jews and Gentiles trying to learn how to coexist in faith.

Persecution was growing, the empire was hostile, and Paul himself had already endured beatings, imprisonment, and betrayal.

So when Paul writes, “All things work together for good,” he isn’t speaking as an optimist.

He’s speaking as a man who’s bled for the gospel — and still believes in the goodness of God.

And what’s interesting is that in the Greek, Paul uses the word “synergeo” — that’s where we get our word synergy.

It means “to work together in harmony.”

Paul’s saying that God takes even the chaotic, unjust, and painful parts of life — and in His sovereignty, He synergizes them toward good.

Not everything that happens is good — but everything that happens can be used for good when surrendered to Him.

That’s the mystery of divine justice:

God doesn’t always prevent evil, but He never wastes it.

He takes what the enemy meant for harm and rewrites it into redemption.

Metaphor:

Picture a river that’s been blocked by debris. To the naked eye, it looks like the current has stopped — stagnant, useless.

But over time, that obstruction diverts the water into new channels, irrigating dry land that would’ve never seen life otherwise.

That’s what God’s love does with suffering — it redirects it.

Where the world sees blockage, He sees possibility.

Paul understood this firsthand.

In 2 Corinthians 11, he lists what he’s endured:

beatings, shipwrecks, hunger, imprisonment.

And yet he says in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

He wasn’t minimizing pain — he was magnifying perspective.

Theological insight:

God’s justice and God’s love are not opposites; they’re married in His character.

Justice without love becomes cruelty, and love without justice becomes compromise.

But in God, the two coexist perfectly.

That’s why the cross is the ultimate intersection of justice and love.

At the cross, sin was punished — that’s justice.

But sinners were forgiven — that’s love.

So when we cry out, “God, where are You when injustice happens?”

The answer isn’t silence — it’s Calvary.

He’s there.

Bleeding, suffering, absorbing the full weight of what justice required — because His love refused to abandon us to it.

Reflection:

“I remember reading Romans 8:28 one night after something in my life felt completely unfair.

And I thought, ‘God, I don’t see how any of this can work for good.’

But looking back now, I see how His love was quietly at work behind the curtain — rearranging, redeeming, and refining what I thought was ruined.”

God’s love isn’t proven by the absence of injustice.

It’s proven by His ability to redeem it.

He is the only Being in existence who can take evil and transform it into good — without becoming evil Himself.

So no, suffering doesn’t make Him less just — it reveals just how sovereign His justice is.

Because even when the world breaks its own heart, God can still write a resurrection story out of the ruins.

Section 4: Lessons from Job — Suffering Without Reason

“By this point, we’ve looked at how free will opened the door to suffering, and how God’s love can purify us through it.

But what about when suffering doesn’t make sense at all?

What about when it’s not the result of sin, or consequence, or disobedience — when it just… happens?

When pain feels unearned, unfair, and unexplainable?

That’s where the story of Job meets us.

Let’s read it together — Job 1:8–12:

‘And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.’

Now, let’s slow down here.

Because this passage offends our modern sense of comfort.

Job wasn’t wicked. He wasn’t living in sin. In fact, Scripture calls him blameless and upright.

So why would a loving God allow this?

To answer that, we first have to understand the book itself.

The Book of Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible — older than the Psalms, possibly even older than Genesis.

It sits in what’s known as the Wisdom Literature, alongside Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Unlike those books, though, Job doesn’t offer quick answers. It invites us into mystery.

We don’t know exactly who wrote it, though some scholars suggest Moses, others an ancient scribe in the time of Abraham.

But what’s more important than the author is the theme:

Job explores the problem of suffering in a way no other book does.

It begins in heaven — in a divine council, where God allows Satan to test Job’s faith.

And that detail alone is hard for many of us: that God would allow testing.

But what we often miss is that Satan had to ask permission.

Which means: even suffering operates under divine sovereignty.

Job’s pain was not random. It was regulated.

He wasn’t being punished — he was being proven.

Theological insight:

Job’s story reveals that God’s love allows testing, not for destruction, but for demonstration — to show that faith rooted in love is not dependent on blessing.

That’s what Satan questioned:

“Does Job love You for nothing? Or does he love You only because You bless him?”

And that question still echoes today.

Do we love God for His hand — or for His heart?

Would we still love Him if all the blessings were stripped away?

Metaphor:

Think of a diamond. Before it ever shines, it endures crushing pressure in the depths of the earth.

It’s invisible, unseen, under heat and weight that could break almost anything else.

But when it finally surfaces, it reflects light in ways that no ordinary stone can.

That’s what happens in the furnace of suffering.

Job’s story shows us that sometimes God’s love doesn’t shield us from the fire — it sustains us in it.

Because His goal isn’t to make our lives comfortable; it’s to make our hearts unshakable.

Reflection:

“I think about seasons in my own life where pain didn’t make sense. Where I searched for sin to explain it, or prayed for clarity that never came.

And yet, even in that silence, there was still Presence.

I’ve come to realize — sometimes God speaks loudest in what He doesn’t say.

Job never got an answer to ‘why.’

But he got a revelation of who.

In Job 42:5, at the end of his journey, Job says, ‘I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.’

In other words — the pain that confused him became the pathway that revealed God to him.

And maybe that’s the secret:

Suffering isn’t always meant to make sense.

Sometimes it’s meant to make space — for a deeper encounter with God.

Theological reflection:

Job’s story dismantles the transactional faith of the world — the belief that love equals comfort, or that blessing means favor.

It shows us that true love, divine love, doesn’t collapse under loss. It clings tighter.

And the beauty of it all?

At the end of the story, God restores Job double what he lost.

Not because Job earned it — but because he endured it.

So the next time you face pain that makes no sense, remember:

It might not be punishment.

It might just be proof — that your love is real.”

Last Verse Standing

John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”