Blessed Assurance

Recently I commented on a friends post about God loving the whole world, using John 3:16 as an example.  While that verse is wonderful, and accurate, it's the context of the verse that is usually confused.  Thus, the never-ending debate continues between those who believe we choose God, and therefore maintain sovereignty over our lives, or, that God chose us before the foundations of the earth and we have no choice but to serve Him wholeheartedly, knowing He replaces our will and exchanges our strength for His own, while He bears the fruit in us.  Let me back up a bit first---

 Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

We know we sin. 

I have not met a person who denies ever doing something wrong in their life.  It's our very nature to be selfish, prideful, covetous, etc etc etc.  If I need a refresher I just look at the Ten Commandments.  Ten things I can't keep myself from doing on any given day, especially according to what God observes.  It's easy to admit we aren't perfect.  But who cares right?

I must pay for my crimes do I not?  How do I pay Eternally?  By complete and total separation from God....which is death. 

Ezekiel 24:14  I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD.”  *bold mine

It seems God is either characterized as a tyrant who whips us into submission and demands we do whatever we can to please Him VS. a grandfatherly wimp who doesn't know what we will do next, but hoping we'll behave and rewards us with a cookie if we're good...and if we're super well behaved (for the most part) we'll get a fancy house that He built especially for us after we kick-the-can.  Marshmallows and lollipops for everyone!

Yes God loves the 'whole world', but could it be possible that is how the English language explains every single Christian throughout history from the Garden of Eden to whomever is the last to repent, whenever that may be?

If all people were included in Jesus' free gift, truly, Hell would be empty.  

Think about that for a second.  There's been a wrong done.  We've all been infants screaming at our mothers, or toddlers fighting with other toddlers for their hearts desire at that moment.  Someone needs to pay for the hurt, the wrong, but if I don't have to than who does?  If there is a crime, there must be a punishment.

 
How can God, who does not change, claim to love the whole world, and yet stop loving people once they *choose* to reject Him and Christ, sending them to Hell?  If God really loves the whole world, every living person that ever walked the earth will be in Heaven with Him.  Every person who ever lived.  I don't know about you, but there were some people through history that I'd rather not share a meal with ever in my life.  And I am positive there are some people who think I have a mental disease, so the hope is that God seats us pretty far apart so that we never have to converse....

That is just silly if you believe Heaven is a place where nothing but unity and love exists. 

 
Can a Just and Perfect God stop doing something He said He would do?   Would a loving God, Mighty in His Omnipotence (all-powerful), Omnipresence (ever-present) and Omniscience (all-knowing), and Mercy, allow anyone that He loves to be eternally cut off from Him?  Would a Loving Deity hold out a treat (Our very souls) over our heads and tease us with something we could attain on our own if we could just jump high enough to reach?

  

The entire Bible is about who God is, what He is doing, and how He has used and continues handling creation to execute His plan.  Page after page of Scripture tells it's readers about  His Sovereignty, our need for judgment and punishment, and His grace through Jesus Christ. It is called the living word for a reason.

If God changed His mind would this not be a contradiction?  Something can not be true, and not true at the same moment.  Law of non-contradiction folks.

Malachi 3:6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

God is the source of love, He IS Love. 

He can not go against His Word, who He is, His very Character.  

What are we to make of the blessings we see being distributed all over the world to people who obviously flaunt their lack of moral decency and hatred for their fellow man?

This is something I and others call common grace.  

Grace is poured onto His Elect from the throne in Heaven, and spills off  to the rest of the world, that is why it appears that God loves everyone.  He alone knows who belong to Christ. 

We don't.  

So we must be very careful in labeling those we meet throughout our lives.

(I know that you could very well be one of His elect as you read this, and I pray that you are.  I am in no way saying you are not.)

 James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.


I refuse to accept that those who 'appear' godly are the ones that are going to Heaven.  Many will say "Lord! Lord!"  But will not enter the kingdom.  A remnant who live out their mortality in debauchery and evil could be converted in their last moments of breath, like the thief that hung on the cross beside Jesus Christ.  Or, in my case, who took life by the horns and did everything the way I saw fit, almost destroying the vitality I thought I had control of, only to be consumed by His Grace when He preordained the time to breathe His essence into me. 

Conversion is instant, and also a process.

 God set out to do what He said He would do, and He is doing it.  By sending The Lord Jesus Christ, to live for His Elect, is by far the greatest act of Love in History.

God doesn't belong to time as we know it.   He is there at the beginning of creation and He sees the end of it.  We are like a teeny tiny crumb on his Golden Plate, all ages past present and future. 

God does not change. 

 Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Has he said, and will he not do it?  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? 

Only people change.

 Jonah 3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. 

God in His infinite mercy spared a whole generation of Ninevites, yet a 100 years after that whole city repented Nineveh was wiped out, annihilated, taken over.  God did do what He said He would do in the first chapter of Jonah.  He alone decided when to execute His Judgment. 

I am so thankful and humbled to know it's not about what I do, or who I am that measures God's Love for me, or the rest of His people.  What a marvelous thing to know that through Christ, God's Perfect True Love for His Elect will never cease, no matter what.  He will not tire of me and toss me aside because He claimed me and I am in Jesus Christ, an adopted daughter into the Family of GOD!

We as human beings can only experience the expression of His love while on this earth.  We will not understand the fullness of True Love until we are with the Source of love.  His love will not change, which is our assurance as His people.

What is the expression of Gods love?

The Lord Jesus Christ.

Everything else is just emotional, changing, 'one day I love something the next I want to kill it, or at least sell it for a nice profit'.

Only by knowing Christ do I have any sort of understanding about True Love, and in a weak human way I'm able to mimic it. 

Sort of.

It's a work in progress.  Not my work, but His in me.  That way, it's Eternal.

True Love does not change.

God does not love everyone because if He did, there would be no such thing as Hell, and Jesus Christ's coming would not be necessary.  Nor would his death and resurrection be so vital to the reconciliation between The Elect and God.

But The Lord Loves His People, we can be secure in knowing this.

Remember, the first doctrinal lie ever told was that we would not be judged.

Collosions2:8

 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

If anyone has any questions or wants to rip my opinion apart, feel free to comment. 

I am not ashamed to say that death is coming, are you secure in knowing where you will go?