There is no love like the love of God. Not even close.

There is no love like the love of God.  Not even close.

God loves the lawyer.  The computer programmer.  The doctor.  The dairy farmer.  The truck driver.  The waitress.  The pop star.  The kindergarten teacher.  The unemployed.

Ah, but it gets more uncomfortable than this.

God’s love is for the murderer.  The liar.  The thief.  The adulterer.  The embezzler.  The rapist.   The terrorist.  The gang leader.

The drunk.  The woman who allows her children to be brutally beaten by her boyfriend.  The boyfriend who brutally beats the children.  The children.

God’s love embarrasses people.  Makes people mad.  Provokes people to make judgment calls on who deserves love and who doesn’t.

And God’s love just doesn’t seem to care at all about what sinful people think or don’t think about His mercy on other sinful people.

We try to tell God how serious sin is when it’s against us or those we care about, and try to tell God how minor sin is when we’re the ones doing it.

But– all sin is infinite.  It goes on and on forever.  And nobody knows that better than God.

All of us are eternally damned.  Turned away from God.  Resilient against Him.  Every sin is, at its root, saying no to God.  We don’t want God.  We don’t want God’s Heaven.  We don’t want God’s rules.

We look at the murderer, or the rapist, or the terrorist, and we think, “That person is begging for Hell.”

But the reality is, we’re all begging for Hell.

And there is no “sliding scale” of what is bad enough to go to Hell.

All sin is saying no to God.  And the only place to be if you’re not with God is Hell.  This earth is a “holding cell” in a way, an “incubating unit”, where we wait make our choice: be with Him forever or not.  In God’s grace, He sustains us in this world to give us the opportunity to receive the Son who is the only Man who always said Yes to His will.

The instant we leave this world, our opportunity is over, the decision made.  If we ended with no to God, God will honor that no.

And so everybody who says no goes to the same place.  The murderers go to the same place as the con artists and the abusers and users . . . along with everyone who has ever lied, and everyone who has ever committed a sexual sin, and everyone who has ever been selfish, and everyone who has ever refused to help someone . . . . . . . and the list goes on and on.

There is no social hierarchy in Hell.

It’s Hell.

Whether you’re in Hell because of sins most people think are little or sins most people think are big won’t matter nearly so much as that you are in Hell.

There is nothing so horrible in all of everything that can possibly happen to a person as to go to Hell when there is no love like the love of God.

How dreadful to know that Jesus was willing and able to pay for your sins, but you chose to deny the love of God and pay for your own sins.

Since there is no love like the love of God and since all love comes from God, everyone in Hell is doomed to a loveless existence.

There can’t be anything worse than this.  It is a fate God does not wish on even the most vile, disgusting, remorseless, cold-blooded criminal in the entire world.

And so He sent His Son, as the Way, for anyone

ANYONE

ANYONE

ANYONE

who would believe in Him.

Because, like I’ve discovered–

There is no love like the love of God.

He saved even me.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Whoever puts his trust in God’s Son will not be lost but will have life that lasts forever. (Jesus, John 3:16, NLV)

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. (Jesus, John 3:16, NCV)

God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. (Jesus, John 3:16, GW)

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. (Jesus, John 3:16, NIV)

Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life. (Jesus, John 3:16, ERV)

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