have been blessed this past week to get the opportunity to talk openly about God with a couple of people that I am close to, and aren’t believers. God has blown me away, bringing patience, and the right words to say at the right time.

In one discussion, we were fixed on that essential “issue” that humans seem to have an issue on. “How can a loving God not save everyone…” People hear and understand from an outside perspective that “God is Loving” and “God is Forgiving” and that mixes in with their own philosophy into a God that is somehow happy as long as we’re happy. This is truly a sad development.

We were able to discuss this topic a little bit, and I was able to confront it from this angle - “Yes, God is Love, God is Forgiving - but God is also Holy, and Just”

He is no more loving than he is just, no more forgiving than he is Holy. He is infinite in his qualities. People can relate when you ask them “When somebody rapes, murders a child - do they deserve punishment?” - for punishment to them is “right” and “just” when compared to a human situation. OF COURSE that person deserves punishment! Yet when the Bible compares hatred to murder, finds lust adultery, says we are not to lie, blaspheme his name, steal - they find it hard to feel the same towards themselves or others as they felt towards that hypothetical murderer.

Truth is - my God is Holy, Pure, and Just, and he punishes murderers. Sin has no place in Holiness. That is the reason for Christ. God is loving, and forgiving, but not to those who willfully turn there back on him.

What’s funny, is I’ve run across a lot of people who say “Yes - I believe the Bible 100%” and then throw piles of their own ideas, baseless, into the equation.

“Well, Jesus is the kind of guy who would let other Gods in”
“Jesus is the kind of guy who will let everyone in as long as they believed in something”
“Religion evolves, Jesus evolves”

Nope. “The wages of sin is death…” - now, today, and tomarrow. Why? Because my God is holy! My God is just!

BUT - when a frail, human sinner has a fine too big to pay (which we do) and is bound for that JUST punishment, a loving, forgiving savior PAID it. Justice is reconciled - and we are free in his PERFECT sacrifice, PERFECT payment.