What does this statement truly mean?

[ItrustJesus]

It would be good if someone could explain this for me:

I have heard various people, especially Protestants, say

“God loves you as you are”.

What does this mean?
Does God love a rapist as they are?
Does God love a murderer as they are?
Does God love a robber as they are?
Because God loves us as we are, why should we bother repenting/converting etc?

 

[Reepicheep]

My Dad spent the last year of his life in a hospital, unable to walk more than a few paces.
I loved him as much then as when he was healthy. I loved him as he was.
Does that mean I would pass up a chance to cure him? Or that I didn’t care that he was sick and dying?
Or, loving him as he was, would I still want him to be other than as he was?

 

[JLove]

I was a Protestant for 18 years, and every time I heard that phrase it was in the context of “getting saved.” The reasoning being that many people believed they had to “clean up” their lives before they could come to Christ. They would say to themselves, “How could someone so perfect love me, someone so imperfect?” So, the preacher would say that, “Jesus loves you as you are. You need not worry about correcting your sins. Just come as you are.” To get more of a feel for this ideology look at one of the most sung hymns amoung Protestants (Baptists anyway), Just As I Am.

 

[Didi]

He does love us as we are. He also loves us too much to leave us as we are!

 

[zian]

You don’t repent for God’s sake. You repent for your own.

 

[John-the-Seeker]

"God loves you as you are"
This statement means that the perfect God who created you and is forming you within the permission you give Him, loves you period. He loves all His creation including Satan. What He does not like is what we** do ** that is not in imitation of Him. To imitate God and love one another, we need to separate what people do from who they are. We love the sinner and hate the sin.
Love is God. God is love. Love/God is unchanging and unconditional. He loves because He chooses to love. No one can make you love. It is a choice we all must make for ourselves. Our imperfect love is often conditional as we wrap sins around sinners and reject both the sin and the sinner. We throw out both the baby and the bath water and in turn reject God’s love for us. John’s Gospel,“He who says he loves God, whom he has not seen and does not love his brother whom he has seen is a liar. The Truth is not in him.”

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

"God loves you as you are"
This statement means that the perfect God who created you and is forming you within the permission you give Him, loves you period. He loves all His creation including Satan. What He does not like is what we** do **that is not in imitation of Him. To imitate God and love one another, we need to separate what people do from who they are. We love the sinner and hate the sin.
Love is God. God is love. Love/God is unchanging and unconditional. He loves because He chooses to love. No one can make you love. It is a choice we all must make for ourselves. Our imperfect love is often conditional as we wrap sins around sinners and reject both the sin and the sinner. We throw out both the baby and the bath water and in turn reject God’s love for us. John’s Gospel,“He who says he loves God, whom he has not seen and does not love his brother whom he has seen is a liar. The Truth is not in him.”

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