Dear Friends,
Bonnie and I recently spent the day with a group of GenXers (born 1965-1975). We were saddened to learn how few of them are believers. This morning as I listened to the final verse of the classic song “Long Long Time,” I was moved to wonder, “Does God love the people who reject Him?”
“Cause I’ve done everything I know to try and make you mine And I think I’m gonna love you for a long long time.” – Linda Ronstadt
Think about it; God has done everything he can to have us love Him.
God Prepared a Place for Us. In a December 25, 2014 column in the Wall Street Journal – “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God” – Eric Metaxas offered evidence that God specifically designed the universe for mankind.
“The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all,” Metaxas reasoned; … “the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?”
The prophet Isaiah wrote about “God’s design” in the 7th Century BC.
Isaiah 40:26 (NIV) “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”
God Made Us. According to a National Geographic article, there are 37.2 trillion cells, 78 organs, 206 bones, and at least 650 skeletal muscles. According to Wikipedia, the human eye can distinguish about 10 million colors. As Psalm 139:13 reminds us, “[God] made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Psalm 139:14 (NLT) “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”
God Provides for All
Matthew 5:45 “For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”
Corinthians 9:10 “For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.”
The Bible Assures Those Who Love Him of God’s Love.
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT) “That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’”
God’s Love is Offered to Everyone. The Bible confirms that he loves the whole world.
John 3:16 (NIV) “ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
God Wants to Draw Us to Him.
Acts 17-24a “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth … he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”
Unfortunately, Many Will Reject God
John 12:47-50a (MSG) “If anyone hears what I am saying and doesn’t take it seriously, I don’t reject him. I didn’t come to reject the world; I came to save the world. But you need to know that whoever puts me off, refusing to take in what I’m saying, is willfully choosing rejection …”
A Long Long Time
Peter 3:9 (NLT) “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”
Back to the question, “Does God love those who reject Him?” As the above Scripture indicates, God is patient, wanting everyone to repent and accept Jesus. One of the ways that He shows His love is by giving everyone the choice to accept or reject His Son. Our job as Christians is not to hypothesize on God’s final judgment. Rather, we should do all we can to be a light to those who remain in darkness – because eternity is a long long time. Blessings, Your Friends in Christ
- For an extensive treatise on the argument for design (anthropic principle), see the Reasons to Believe website: http://www.reasons.org/articles/anthropic-principle-a-precise-plan-for-humanity.
Because He Loves Us Press 