God's Love: Better than Unconditional

David Powlison argues that God's love is cheapened and distorted by expressing it in the secular language of "unconditional." And because of that, people are not as free as they could by by the power of the gospel. Here are some of his thoughts:

The Lord watches you. The Lord cares. What His children do and what happens to them matters to him. His watching, caring, and concern are intense. Complex. Specific. Personal. Unconditional love isn’t nearly so good or compelling. In comparison, it is detached, general, impersonal. God’s love is much better than unconditional.

God’s love is active. He’s involved. He’s merciful, not simply tolerant. He hates sin, yet pursues sinners by name. He welcomes the poor in spirit with a shout and a feast. God is vastly patient and relentlessly persevering as He intrudes into your life.
God’s love is full of blood, sweat, tears, and cries. He suffered for you. He fights for you and he fights with you, pursuing you in powerful tenderness so he can change you. He’s jealous, not detached.
His sort of empathy and sympathy speaks out, with words of truth to set you free from sin and misery. He will discipline you as proof that He loves you. God Himself comes to live in you, pouring out His Spirit in your heart, putting out power and energy, so you will know Him.
God’s love has hate in it too: hatred for evil, whether done to you or done by you. God’s love demands that you respond to it: by believing, trusting, obeying, giving thanks with a joyful heart, working out your salvation with fear and trembling, delighting in Him.
Like Aslan, the Lord’s love for his children is no tame love. It is not characterized by calm detachment or a determination not impose His values on you. His love is good in a way that is vigorous and complex.
Unconditional love feels safe, but the problem is that there is no power to it. When we ascribe unconditional love to God, we substitute a teddy bear for the King of the universe.

What words will do to describe the love of God that spectacularly accepting, yet opinionated, choosy, and intrusive? What words will do to describe the love of God that takes me just as I am but makes me over? That accepts people but has a lifelong agenda for change? The term unconditional love seems flabby and weak in the face of God’s powerful, purposeful love.
(David Powlison, from With New Eyes)