I believe babies who die at birth are saved.
So God "forces" salvation upon infants who die at birth, and that's fine; but God "forcing" salvation on other people is bad?
I believe that a man on his death bed can just believe on the name of the Son of God and be saved in his last seconds of life.
As do I.
I believe a man can die and come back from the dead and then repent of their sins to the Lord and be saved.
As do I.
So the analogies you give are of these things. So while these analogies are true for children and or those who are dead, the truth that God forcing Himself upon all is not the loving God of the Bible.
Really? I think you should pay more attention to your Bible.
God chose Abraham, Abraham didn't earn God's favor.
Jacob certainly didn't do anything to earn God's favor, and yet God chose Jacob.
Moses was an orphan who murdered an Egyptian and then fled, God chose Moses. In fact Moses actively tried to resist God's call, and yet God still chose Moses and through Moses rescued Israel from captivity and slavery in Egypt.
God chose the shepherd boy David to succeed Saul as king, and promised that through the line of David would come the Messiah, the redeemer of Israel and the world.
God used Cyrus to free His people from captivity in Babylon.
God is the One who did these things. God is proactive. God does things, and He says things, and the things He says and does are not impotent. When God acts, things happen; when God speaks, what He says comes to pass.
For can a man force his love upon another woman if she does not want that love? Would it be true love if he brainwashed her to love him? No.
Then it's a good thing I don't believe God is like a man forcing himself on a woman and brainwashing her. That would, indeed, be quite twisted.
She would have to truly love him of her own free will in order for it to be true love.
We love because
He first loved us.
It is God's love, God's grace, God's kindness regenerating us, giving us faith that we can, in turn, respond to Him in love.
God doesn't wait for sinners who hate Him to suddenly start loving Him. He loves them first, and it is the power of His love that transforms the sinner's cold, dead, rusty heart into a living, beating heart full of life.
I love God, it is a love that is free, not coerced. But that love did not originate in me, it is not a result of my own sinful lusts and sinful thoughts and wayward feelings stumbling in the dark. God gave me a new heart, God raised this dead heart from the grave when He clothed me with His own Son, and rescued me out of the darkness of my own sin and death and reconciled me to Himself by giving me, and placing me in, Jesus Christ.
God did that. And when I think about what God has done for me I cannot help but pray that God teach me, day by day, how to love.
Praying that God continue to crucify my flesh, my sinful will, that He tear down the walls and barricades of pride, of fear, of faithlessness; that He renew me day by day, that He sustains me moment by moment.
Not that I might earn my way to paradise or some such silliness. But that I might actually live like a child of God and a citizen of the Kingdom here in the midst of my neighbors. That I might see the man who is hungry, and give him something to eat.
I pray that God continue His work in my life, conforming me to the image of Christ, that I might continue to carry the cross of discipleship which Christ has called me to carry--and how to carry it with joy. God has given us the privilege of loving others even as He has so graciously loved us.
God has thrown Himself away in love, giving Himself away to us and to the whole world. And He now invites us to go and do the same--to give ourselves away, the lives that we live here are lives lived in sacrifice, a calling to be living sacrifices, to minister, serve, and love all people, and to care for all of creation.
The highest form of love is not forced. This is why God gave Adam and Eve free will the test in the garden. God wanted to see if they would love him of their own free will. They failed, and so God needed to be their go-between in helping them to love Him. God did not all of a sudden mind wipe Adam and Eve and the rest of humanity to obey God.
You think it was a test? I think the garden, the earth, life itself is a gift. The Fall in the Garden is man's taking God's gifts and throwing them back in His face and saying, "Not Your will, but my will be done".
Man does not need a therapist or a life coach to get better. Man needs a Savior who actually fixes the problems, who actually intends to take all the broken pieces of the world and put them back together, and make them brighter and better. That's why we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the Age to Come. And that work has begun already, in Christ, the firstfruits of the resurrection, and it is a work that has begun in us by beginning the work of new creation in us, and which will become complete and perfect at the resurrection on the Last Day when God makes all things new and God is all in all.
I mean, why on Earth does God get angry at sin if God forces His love upon people?
It is because God loves people unconditionally that He is angry with sin. But His anger against sin is not God raging against us; because God's way of dealing with us is to send Jesus Christ and suffer and die for us. Because God's way of being God is to love us--we who sin against Him and one another. God loves sinners, He has chosen to love sinners. He loves us not because of anything we have done, or because of who we are--He loves us because of who
He is.
If man has no control over what He does
Man has no control over what God does.
But man certainly does have control over what man does. I am responsibile for my sins, no one else is. God, rather than casting me away, loves me. God loves me even though I'm a sinner. God loves me in my worst. Because that's who God is.
or if God can simply mind wipe a person to love Him,
He doesn't.
then God should never ever get upset. So what you believe is highly illogical.
You are engaging in a number of straw man arguments, and making a lot of assumptions about what I believe which I don't.
Also, it's not about believing what is logical, it's about believing the Gospel. If the Gospel were "logical" then it wouldn't be foolishness. But the cross is foolishness to the wise, and weakness to the strong; because God chose the weak and foolish things to confound the strong and the wise. Nevertheless, Christ is the Wisdom and Power of God. So with foolish things God shows forth His wisdom, and with weak things shows forth His power.
It is in the weakness, shame, foolishness, and lowliness of the cross that God makes Himself known to us. God Himself loving the world with arms outstretched and hands nailed to a crossbeam crying out, "Forgive them".
God demonstrates His love in this way, while we were still lost sinners Christ died for us. Christ died
for you.
Death swallowed Jesus, the Grave consumed Him--and then He broke down the ancient doors, trampled down the devil's skull, bound the strong man, and set captives free. He rose from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the grave giving life.
And this is yours, not because of anything you chose, or willed, or accomplished. But because it's what Jesus did, for you.
Because that's who He is.
God
loves you. You don't have to bear the burden of guilt that makes you feel like you have to earn His love, Christ has unfastened that burden of guilt from your back and taken it upon Himself on the cross.
"
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
[The Lord takes our burden],
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life –
I know that it is finished.
I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom;
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer;
But this I know with all my heart –
His wounds have paid my ransom."
-CryptoLutheran