Does God love unbelievers as much as me?

[briareos]

Forgive me for allowing you to assume that I am seeking an answer to the question. This was something I recently felt God really touched my life about and I wanted to share.

I was listening to a preacher recently who was speaking on the topic of God's justice. He said that if you are more passionate about people than you are about Jesus then you will always have a problem concerning God's justice and the more I thought about this the more I saw it was true for me.

I began to realize that I did not trust God or the gospel to do right by my unbelieving friends. I did not mean to... but in an effort to love people and love nonbelievers I had accidentally held on to my old atheist belief that the gospel was an oppressive message that beats people into submission. I feel like unbelievers have every right and reasons to not believe and that we must respect them.

I realized that I felt like the gospel was oppressive and that I did not trust God to love nonbelievers as much as I do.

I began to ask God to forgive me and help me trust and help me understand. I said to myself that I will "choose" to trust God even when I do not understand and as my thoughts developed and I began to realize that I had err'd while making an attempt to love people and then I heard a voice in my heart say

"No greater love is there, than for a man to lay down his life for a friend" and I recalled that Jesus died for those unbelievers I was trying to love and it dawned on me that he loved them just as much as I do and more than I do. God had spoken to me and said "I know you love them but you don't love them as much as I love them, I love them too Lee"

and then I remembered that Jesus had asked the father to forgive them because they did not know what they did and it further dawned on me that the gospel was not a message of oppression upon those who do not and cannot understand... when Jesus could not change them he died for them instead and as he died he forgave them and he knew they didn't understand.

This just really touched my heart, that God would respond so strongly to my needy heart and what he showed me. I am well aware of the story and all but sometimes it takes the personal touch of God to see things through a different light.

I love nonbelievers and out of that love and understanding them I refuse to judge them or harass them and refuse to consider them less. But my love for them doesn't reach as high as God's love and he also knows they misunderstand and he is not trying to force them into submission to something they can't understand, he died for them when he could not change them and as he died he said he understood that they didn't understand he forgave them.

This has really changed my view of the gospel message.

 

[Life2Christ]

Unbelievers are some of my favorite people because I used to be one and I know what it is like. I hear stories of people who became saved at 9, 10, 12 years old and I'm like wow. I can't relate to that because I had a very lukewarm religious upbringing. But I'm on fire when I come across an unbeliever who is struggling and needs help because I used to be in their shoes.

 

[day time]

Beautiful OP :~)

 

[Thusia Zao]

This is great. Praise God for giving you that realization.

 

[TamaraLynne]

Forgive me for allowing you to assume that I am seeking an answer to the question. This was something I recently felt God really touched my life about and I wanted to share.

I was listening to a preacher recently who was speaking on the topic of God's justice. He said that if you are more passionate about people than you are about Jesus then you will always have a problem concerning God's justice and the more I thought about this the more I saw it was true for me.

I began to realize that I did not trust God or the gospel to do right by my unbelieving friends. I did not mean to... but in an effort to love people and love nonbelievers I had accidentally held on to my old atheist belief that the gospel was an oppressive message that beats people into submission. I feel like unbelievers have every right and reasons to not believe and that we must respect them.

I realized that I felt like the gospel was oppressive and that I did not trust God to love nonbelievers as much as I do.

I began to ask God to forgive me and help me trust and help me understand. I said to myself that I will "choose" to trust God even when I do not understand and as my thoughts developed and I began to realize that I had err'd while making an attempt to love people and then I heard a voice in my heart say

"No greater love is there, than for a man to lay down his life for a friend" and I recalled that Jesus died for those unbelievers I was trying to love and it dawned on me that he loved them just as much as I do and more than I do. God had spoken to me and said "I know you love them but you don't love them as much as I love them, I love them too Lee"

and then I remembered that Jesus had asked the father to forgive them because they did not know what they did and it further dawned on me that the gospel was not a message of oppression upon those who do not and cannot understand... when Jesus could not change them he died for them instead and as he died he forgave them and he knew they didn't understand.

This just really touched my heart, that God would respond so strongly to my needy heart and what he showed me. I am well aware of the story and all but sometimes it takes the personal touch of God to see things through a different light.

I love nonbelievers and out of that love and understanding them I refuse to judge them or harass them and refuse to consider them less. But my love for them doesn't reach as high as God's love and he also knows they misunderstand and he is not trying to force them into submission to something they can't understand, he died for them when he could not change them and as he died he said he understood that they didn't understand he forgave them.

This has really changed my view of the gospel message.

 

[briareos]

Unbelievers are some of my favorite people because I used to be one and I know what it is like. I hear stories of people who became saved at 9, 10, 12 years old and I'm like wow. I can't relate to that because I had a very lukewarm religious upbringing. But I'm on fire when I come across an unbeliever who is struggling and needs help because I used to be in their shoes.

Right, and that's exactly how I feel. I remember when the gospel made no sense to me, I remember when I couldn't believe even if I wanted to. So much of the gospel is not believable without God's help... a man born of a virgin and walks on water and then ascends to heaven and he tells everyone else they are wrong and can't enter heaven without him... how is that believable?

I've been afraid and unwilling to share the gospel much for the simple reason that I did not believe that God cared for unbelievers as much as I did. I thought it was a message that required all of you and offered little in return for the skeptical person and it offers no quarter to those who cannot understand it.

This has really helped me, I no longer need to fear that Gospel is abusive or that God doesn't have their best interest at heart.
These may sound like some very simple issues for some people but they may not be for those who did not always have God in their life.

 

[znr]

I've always known this.

Ironically, many many Christians have a very atheistic view of God toward unbelievers.

 

[SamsoniteBaggage]

There is an important reason why Jesus said the parable of the workers in the field and the prodigal son...

Look at Jonah. He so badly did not want to save Nineveh, he tried to run. When Nineveh was saved, despite his own will (he did only say the city would be destroyed in forty days and gave no statement of repentance)... he was so angry, he sat and sulked without food or water for **forty days**.

People like to say, "That is not me God!"... but they are deluding themselves. They are children and siblings, not mom and dad. They have worked hard, and have been secretly envious of those who have played... carousing like little teenagers on a free for all party all vacation.

Bzzt. Wrong.


We are here to save ***everyone***. ALL are God's children.

 

[briareos]

Another thing about Jonah that I find interesting is even in the end he still had his priorities messed up... He got angry at God for saving the people and then he got angry at God for killing a plant and God rebuked him and that ends the story of Jonah and never see Jonah learning or doing better any better, it's a very sad story of a man who never stopped running from God except for a brief moment to save his own life and who never got his heart right but God still used him... kinda means we should look at ourselves, just because we are used of God doesn't mean we have it together.

 

[iambren]

Does God love unbelievers as much as me?



I don't think so.

 

[briareos]

OH MY GOSH!

The story of Jonah is a story of God using a man who would not get his heart right and who did not want to follow and who God had to almost make him do it... because he wanted those unbelievers to hear the truth, he cared more about those unbelievers than he did the problems of the would be man of God...