Life can be a funny thing. You work so hard to try to do things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. What exactly is the problem? Could it be that if we had the proper perspective that everything would be fine? What might life look like from God’s perspective? How does God view life? How does God view me is an easier question?
According to the scriptures, God knows what is going on. He is quite in control of all things. In fact, all things will acknowledge that He is God over all. He is creator. He is in charge. He is in control. He is all-powerful. He knows the way to wisdom as the book of Job says. That is why Job says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
How does God view life, though? Is He satisfied? Does He look on all things with pleasure? Is He excited with where life is going? He must be. There is deep love between the father and the son. If fact, it is perfect. It is intense and alive. Could it be that all His satisfaction comes from this interaction between the Father and the Son? How intense is the love between them? The same love is talked of being toward us.
Could the love between the Father and us be so overwhelming that the satisfaction of life exists? Can satisfaction exist when the story turns out incredibly happy and exactly perfect, but completely horrendous for the rest. We all deserve wrath and are offered a chance at complete salvation and complete forgiveness of all that we have ever done. It all makes sense that those that don’t receive the gift of salvation are quite like a group of people who have the opportunity to hop on a bus. Those that don’t obviously face the consequences of not being on the bus.
So those on the bus go onto absolute paradise and intimacy with the Almighty while those outside the bus go onto absolute judgment. I guess that those who choose not to be on the bus are quite aware of what they are doing. Perhaps they don’t want to turn over control to anyone else, least of all God. They refuse to repent. They refuse to accept the gift. And simple humbleness results in unbelievable exalting by God. Heir with Christ. Relationship with God. Complete freedom. A life of hope. Purpose.
Perhaps we all really receive what we want. Okay, let’s go with that. We all receive what we want. Of course, what you receive is a bit more than you expected, that’s for sure. God’s way is so unbelievably amazing. Not God’s way is so unbelievably bad and horrific.
The point of all this is that how do you not feel quite bad for those who choose not to get on the bus? How do you let them go and deal with the loss of letting them go? How do you properly mourn for them? Oh, this brings me back to our original question of God’s satisfaction and our satisfaction. How is God satisfied with this situation? How am I satisfied with this situation?
It’s like eating at a feast. Huge tables of food. Lots of family. Plenty of those pies and desserts. Lots of meats. Tons of sides. Also, there are starving people outside who refuse to come inside to be satisfied. They are eating scraps or dirt or poison. They are shriveled from lack of food. Their faces are empty. No amount of pleading or persuading will convince them to come inside. It’s also quite impossible in the economy of things to pick them up and carry them inside. And now the admonition is to go inside and enjoy the marvelous feast. Is that possible to do while people outside waste away moments from being exposed to the worst kind of wrath possible?
Hell cannot control heaven like that. Somehow it is impossible. Misery can’t enter God’s domain to pour out misery on those there.
A rich man came up to Jesus and asked to follow Him. Keep all the commandments. I have. Sell everything and follow me. The man leaves sad because he was rich and was unwilling to sell all. How does Jesus deal with this? Does He stop His ministry? What are Jesus’ emotions to all this? Well, what are they? In Luke 18, the writer notes that Jesus was looking at him with sadness. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all note that those around ask who then can be saved. Then they compare themselves saying that they have left everything.
Paul talks of those who are coming against him in Romans 3 and concludes that their condemnation is just. In another place, though, he says that he wishes that he was accursed that all the Jews might receive Christ.
So, we know that judgment comes on all who oppose Jesus. Do we like it? Does God like it? It says in Romans 9, “What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory – even us whom He has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles.”
There seems to be a picture of God’s righteous standard and having to carry out the sentence quite aside from emotion or desire. Discipline of a child must be like this. Only in this case, the discipline is absolute judgment.
But here is the truth. Jesus loves all and wills that none should perish. He desires all to be saved – so much so that He came and died on a cross and is the way. He is among those that need Him most and beckons me to join Him in the saving of many. My life is not my own. This horrendous situation cannot thwart me from the task of loving God, making disciples, and being a witness. The truth is that not all will be on the bus, but Jesus would like them on. Many will perish in the ocean of sin and destruction, but Jesus is in the heart of that ocean showing the way to salvation. He desires that I join Him in the ocean. Let’s save many. Let’s join Him in the work.
Some of this comes back to the question of methods. How do we save those in the water? We must identify ourselves with the truth. Those that are saved easily forget about the struggle that of those in that sea, and we tell them about it. Many in the ocean are quite unaware of their plight. To some, the message of salvation becomes the very point of judgment and results in really bad news for them. But there are those out there who are begging for help. Jesus, that we may join You in this quest to save souls.
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