Romans 5:6-10: in context

Paul lays out the astonishing character of God's love. While we were still weak, he writes, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. It is rare enough that anyone would die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person someone might dare it. But God shows his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more, being reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

The heart of the passage is the timing of God's love: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Paul stresses it repeatedly, that Christ died for us not after we had cleaned ourselves up, not once we had become worthy or lovable, but while we were still weak, still ungodly, still sinners, still enemies. God's love did not wait for us to deserve it. It reached us at our worst, loved us while we were still in rebellion, and gave his Son for us before we had turned a single step toward him. This overturns a deep assumption we carry, that we must make ourselves acceptable before God will love us, that his love is a reward for our improvement. Paul says the opposite: God commends his love in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. The love came first, unearned, directed at us precisely in our unworthiness. And this is the ground of a security nothing else can give. If God loved us and gave his Son while we were his enemies, then his love does not depend on our deserving, and cannot be lost by our failing; the love that reached us at our worst is not going to abandon us now that we are reconciled. Much more, Paul says, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life. The love that did the hard thing, dying for enemies, will surely do the rest. We do not have to earn a love that was given while we were still sinners; we have only to receive it, and to rest in a God who loved us before we were lovable and will not stop now.

Do I believe I must make myself worthy before God will love me, or can I take hold of what Paul says, that while I was still a sinner and an enemy, Christ died for me, and rest in a love that reached me at my worst, that I did not earn and therefore cannot lose by my failing?