Saw this reposted on a friend's Facebook wall from Kris Vallotton KVMinistries.com
"If you knew how much God loved you, you would fall over laughing! I mean you would feel sooooooo good about yourself that you would actually begin to believe that you are amazing! If Someone that brilliant loves you, there just must be something to it! You were born to be adored!"
"If you knew how much God loved you, you would fall over in adoration of Him. I mean, you would feel so good about His mercy and grace towards you that you would actually begin to believe that He is more amazing that words could express. If Someone that perfect loves you, there just must be something to our lives more than the superficial and the self-centered. You were born to be loved by God, bring Him glory, and to adore and serve Him."
This is what I took from the op.
While the op quote wasn't worded the best, it is what the Bible teaches.
It is summed up in "for God so loved that He gave...".
If i believed God loves everyone in the world then his love has little or no value to me. If i believed God loves everyone, my mind would not be drawn to God's love because there are millions in hell that God loves. If i told my wife i love her but i also told my wife i love every woman in the world with the same love i love her, then would my love have any value to my wife ?
I guess I would have to say here that you are comparing apples and oranges. Your deep and abiding love for your wife isn't the same kind of love as God's deep and abiding love for His creation. To me, your analogy is faulty.
But, you make a good point.
How can God love the whole world and yet send people to hell? I don't find those two facts to be mutually exclusive. In fact, because God's love is a love that includes justice, they fit together.
I found three Bible verses a while back in Ezekiel that said this: "Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign LORD. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live." and "I don't want you to die, says the Sovereign LORD. Turn back and live!" Ezekiel 18:23 and 32
Also, Ezekiel 33:11 - "As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?"I've kept those verses in the back of my mind for a long while now.
1 Timothy 2:4 says that God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. John 3:1 says that God didn't send Jesus to condemn the world, but to save the world. 2 Peter 3:9 says that God is very patient with us and doesn't want anyone to perish.
I really like this quote:
The Biblical fact that God loves all mankind and the Biblical fact that so many of those same people will spend eternity in hell don't cause a problem for me.
The love is that God so loved us that HE gave His Son to die for us...
NOT because we were anything "special", but because we were pathetic beings, enslaved and trapped by sin, and ONLY God in his love and mercy and grace could redeem us!
Focus on WHO really loved us, GOD, not those whom he chose to love in the beloved!
John 3:16 sums it up nicely. We are of value and a great price was paid because of our worth. A loving father would adore his children. Adoration is wrapped in love.
We are special in that we are in the image of God, his special creation, ONLY ones that have a personal relationship with him, but we are not special in and of ourselves though, we are all filthy and ugly. warped and marred in sin....
God did not save any of us because we were lovely or worth it, He did it out of His love towards sinners unable to do anything to save themselves, in order to bring glory to His name!
Because ............. we are worth it! Because we are of value. Because we are beloved. Because He adores us. His love proves our worth. You wouldn't pay for something that's not worth buying.