You are in sin, but Jesus loves you. He is gently and lovingly inviting you to join the great celebration of grace. Will you join the party, or stand outside in a huff? Will you receive grace, or walk away sad?

For years, I believed Jesus reserved His loving kindness for the obviously broken: the prodigals, the tax collectors, the sinners who knew they were lost. But then I read Mark 10.

In Mark 10, the rich young ruler comes to Jesus sincerely, respectfully, and with remarkable confidence in his own obedience. “All these [laws] I have kept from my youth,” he says. It’s a striking moment of self-righteousness.

And right after the man lays out what he believes is his impeccable spiritual résumé, Mark makes a comment that reshaped my entire view of grace:

“And Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21).

Jesus loved him.

I didn’t have a category for Jesus’ heart beating tenderly for a man who believed he could keep the law. But there it was, right in the text. Jesus loved him—the self-righteous and spiritually self-deceived.

Most of us are comfortable with a Jesus who loves the prodigal, but less comfortable with one who loves the self-righteous. Yet if we let Scripture shape our understanding of Christ’s love, we see that Jesus is not only kind to the hurting but also to the proud. Consider Luke 15. In one of Jesus’ most famous stories, a father runs to embrace his rebellious son after he returns broken and ruined by sin.

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