When we think about the love of God toward us, we're so tempted to immediately go to our own merits, and if we don't feel we have enough merits to achieve the love of God, which we don't, and that's true, then we have to go to the opposite extreme to say, well, God just loves me just the way I am. Well, let's split that statement up. God does love you, but he doesn't love the way you are. The fact is is that he is continuing to make you into the image of Christ. That's what Romans chapter eight says. That's the ultimate end of your salvation is being made into the image of the Son of God. So through the Word of God, through discipline of the Father, through the Church, you are becoming more and more like Christ. Yes, you fully possess the love of God, but you are becoming more and more like Christ until that day when you see him, you become like him, and now you may fellowship with nothing in between you and God.