One of the most persistent lies we’ve been taught is that love must be earned. That it must be proven, justified, explained, or demonstrated in exchange for something else. From childhood, we absorb the belief that love is conditional: Be good and you’ll be loved. Succeed and you’ll be admired. Obey and you’ll be accepted. The ego thrives on this because it keeps us striving. It makes love feel scarce—something to be negotiated, pursued, or deserved.
But A Course in Miracles offers a very different view. It teaches that real love is given, not bargained for. It is not conditional. It is not fragile. It is not earned. It is simply true.
And truth needs no defense.
This is perhaps one of the most liberating and difficult ideas to accept. We’re so used to proving ourselves—proving our worth, our goodness, our loyalty, our pain—that we project those expectations onto others and even onto God. We think, If I just do everything right, I’ll finally be loved the way I need to be.
But unconditional love, by definition, has nothing to do with our performance. It doesn’t ask for credentials. It doesn’t check your past. It doesn’t tally your mistakes or wait until you “get it together.” It simply is.
Love doesn’t say, “I’ll love you if…”
It says, “I love you. Period.”
The ego doesn’t understand this, and frankly, it fears it. Because if love is unconditional, then the ego has no leverage. It can no longer use guilt to manipulate, shame to control, or fear to bind us. If love doesn’t require proof, then all the ego’s strategies fall apart.
So it does everything it can to keep us from remembering this truth.
It tells us we must suffer to be worthy. That we must fix ourselves first. That love is a reward for good behavior. But the Course dismantles that entire thought system with this quiet declaration:
“Love holds no grievances.”
Let that sink in. No grievances. No tally sheet. No demand for proof. Love doesn’t hold the past against you. It doesn’t need you to justify your existence. It just flows—freely, endlessly, without condition.
There was a time in my life when I couldn’t believe this. I was going through a season of loss and failure, and my mind was flooded with judgment. I told myself I had let people down, wasted time, made too many mistakes. I felt I had to prove my value again—from scratch. I was desperate for validation, for someone or something to tell me, *“You’re still worthy.”
One morning, in that fog of self-recrimination, I sat down and prayed:
“Spirit, if I don’t have anything to offer, what use am I?”
And the answer came—not in words, but in a feeling so gentle, so complete, it left me in tears. It said:
“You are loved, not for what you do, but for what you are. And what you are is unchanged.”
That moment changed me. Not because it fixed my circumstances, but because it stripped away the lie that I needed to prove anything. I realized that love doesn’t wait for us to earn it. It’s already given. Always has been.
This is why the Course calls love our natural inheritance. It’s not something we need to chase. It’s something we need to remember.
When we ask others to prove their love to us, we’re often coming from a place of fear. Will you stay? Will you still love me if I mess up? Will you be there if I fail? These questions are understandable, but they reflect the ego’s belief that love is something that can be lost.
True love doesn’t answer those questions with reassurances—it dissolves the need for the questions altogether.
Because in the presence of real love, fear becomes irrelevant.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we tolerate abuse or deny our boundaries. But it does mean we stop equating love with control. We stop measuring it, withholding it, or using it as currency. We let it be what it truly is: a reflection of God.
This shift not only heals our relationships—it heals our perception of self.
Imagine waking up and not needing to prove anything. Not needing to post the perfect words, win the argument, finish the to-do list, or achieve some arbitrary goal just to feel good enough. Imagine being loved as you are—not someday, not if you improve—right now.
That’s not fantasy. That’s reality, according to Spirit.
The love that created you doesn’t see your flaws. It sees your wholeness. The light in you is not dimmed by mistakes. It is not diminished by time. It is not withheld when you fall. It is constant. Eternal.
And it lives in everyone.
When we begin to see this in ourselves, we naturally extend it to others. We stop needing people to prove their love to us, because we’re no longer trying to fill a hole within. We become givers instead of demanders. We become safe places rather than pressure points.
This is the love that changes the world—not because it overpowers, but because it heals.
The Course says:
“Perfect love casts out fear. If fear exists, then there is not perfect love. But only perfect love exists.”
So what does this mean in our daily lives?
It means we stop asking love to perform.
We stop testing it.
We stop making people earn our affection.
And we stop believing we have to earn theirs.
We live, instead, from the truth that we are already whole. Already worthy. Already loved beyond measure.
And when we forget, we pause. We ask Spirit to remind us. We breathe. We return.
Because love doesn’t ask for proof.
It only asks for our willingness to receive.
