Yesterday, a pastor referenced this verse — one that has given me a lot of angst in previous years:

If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. — John 15:10-11

Taken at face value, it feels unsettling. Almost threatening. And verse 11 doesn’t seem to follow naturally from verse 10. Why would conditional love bring me joy?

But what the pastor said is the same place I’ve slowly come to: obeying God’s commands affects our experience of His love. What we do or don’t do doesn’t change our status before Him. He could never love us more or less based on a particular emotion or behavior. That waterfall of love flows for us because of who He is.

So then why do we care about sin?

I’m not a theologian or a Bible scholar. But as I lead middle schoolers, I’ve had to wrestle my way toward an answer.

I care about sin for two reasons.

First, because it hurts. It hurts me. It hurts other people. When I step outside of God’s ways, I fracture things. Internally and externally. Sin carries its own consequences.

And second — even more deeply — sin hardens my heart.

See to it… that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God… so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. — Hebrews 3:12-13

My heart is meant to be soft and open. This is how we connect — with God and with one another. When parts of my heart grow hard through wandering or resistance, I’m not changing how much God loves me. I’m diminishing my ability to receive that love in those places.

With the kids, I use the picture of a sponge. When you hold a sponge under a waterfall, it soaks it up. Eventually it’s so full that it drips and overflows onto everything around it. God’s love is like that — constant, abundant.

But sin slowly turns tender sponge into stone. Maybe not all at once. Maybe just a corner. A small section that has calcified. The waterfall of love for me hasn’t slowed. But that hardened place can’t absorb what’s being poured out.

This is why I confess. This is why I repent.

Confession is for me.

When I turn back toward Him, I’m inviting His Spirit into the hardened place. I’m letting Him begin the softening work — stone back into sponge. And that softening always comes through compassion. Through being seen and known and loved by Him — even there.

When I remain close to Him, confession becomes easier. More natural. I start to want more and more of that love-saturated life.

And once you’ve tasted the goodness of standing under the waterfall — once you’ve known what it is to be filled and overflowing — you become protective of your softness.

Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life. — Proverbs 4:23