Ezekiel 33: 11
“Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.’”
God isn’t into punishment. He is into salvation. He desires that none should perish. That is why He sent His Son, so that every person may be saved.
We get skewed ideas of God sometimes, that He is full of hate and contempt. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is love but there are a lot of people in the world who cannot perceive of love nor accept love so they remake God in their image rather than accepting Him as He is. Because they are unlovely, unworthy to be loved, they make God a hateful, unloving God.
Another problem is that God gets the blame when things go wrong. Satan has done an amazing job of camouflaging himself. He has become almost invisible and intentionally so. There are many people who do not recognize his existence any longer. One person told me that she does not believe in the existence of evil. Look around! How can one truly not understand that there are evil actors in the world? Furthermore, some folks get really nervous when you talk, or even teach, about the devil. This has helped him to run around stealing, killing and destroying with impunity. It is even worse than that. Not only does he get away with it, all too often God gets the blame. Satan scores twice with one swipe. And it is not only the unsaved, the uninitiated who criticize God for Satan’s evil deeds, we Christians are guilty of it too. I ought to know. I blamed God for my sports injuries and troubles. I was helped along by Christians who told me that God was doing these things to me in order to make me strong. What a horrible and wrong teaching. God uses love to strengthen you. He doesn’t blow out your knees in order to make your faith and trust in Him stronger. It only takes a small exercise of logic to figure that one out.
Another common mistake is to judge Christianity by Christians. We are still flawed and make mistakes all of the time. It isn’t very logical when you think about it to judge God by the behavior of people but it is a pretty natural thing to do. Any human institution is going to suffer from the growing pains of its members but God is perfect and so is His love. We certainly are ambassadors for the kingdom of God whether or not we wish to be. A true seeker, though, should exercise wisdom and seek the face of God. I will promise you this. You will not see the face of God and walk away from Him. When a person seeks God they find love and acceptance. When they look at us they sometimes find judgment and condemnation. That is not God’s way. While we are learning to walk and act like God, the wise person will look to Him rather than to judge Him by what they see in us. Actually, if one really thought about it, the fact that the Father loves us enough to accept us should speak volumes about His love. The unsaved ought to look at Christians and say, “If God can love and accept them, then He will most certainly love me.” And it is true. There is no person on this earth that He does not love and wish to spend eternity with. Think of the most vile person you know. God’s will, His heart’s desire, is to save that person and give him a home in heaven.
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