God the conditional lover

So tonight at small group we were discussing the book that we are going through right now, Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller, and in chapter two he says something along the lines of because of what this person has done, God will punish him for it and he will have to suffer and beg God not to send him to Hell. Now this is paraphrased, but not much. I really struggle with this part and really struggle with seeing Donald as one who is against this exact same stuff because of what he JUST said that sounds so much like the very same people he has a problem against.

I can't believe that God would EVER do this to one of us as his children. The bible teaches us that God loves us so much that he sent his only son to DIE for us so that we could be connected to him again in relationship. God hates sin and Jesus died to pay the price for our sin so God could be with us again. :)

You've heard it said, God is Love. That is what I believe. God is Love and love is not making someone suffer for what they've done if its not willingly as with the case of Jesus. Yes its true that people go to hell and yes its true that those people will suffer, but that is not God's intentions. God does NOT want to send his children to Hell. Hell is something we choose for ourselves by not accepting Jesus. By not accepting Jesus' gift of Eternal life. Jesus came as an example for us so that with his death and his resurrection, Jesus continues to live through us when we decide to live for him. When we choose to consciously reject this, that is when God is forced by us, through his loving gift of free will, to give us up to our own sinful nature. That in which all sin has to be punished and since all sin must be punished and we aren't allowing Jesus to take the punishment for our sins, his gift that we don't willingly accept, we have to pay the price ourselves which is death. And since we don't have the power over death like Jesus does, we stay in death. And from what I hear death hurts? That is what I have come to believe about that whole Hell and punishment thing.

But I want to make it clear that GOD DOES NOT PUNISH YOU FOR WHATEVER YOU DO AGAINST HIM!!! God is love,

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

To say that God is the one who does the punishing and the sending to hell:

1) shows God is not patient enough to let the person repent
2) shows that God is not always kind because some people he damns to hell
3) shows that God boasts about how he is sinless and that we are not
4) shows that God is too proud to accept us for who we are
5) shows that God is self seeking because he is more concerned about who he lets into heaven then being the unconditonal loving God that he also says he is
6) shows that God DOES delight in evil, because murder is evil (it is one of the 10 commandments) and murdering someone for eternity, I think, could be considered worse than murdering someone as we know it from this life
7) shows that God can get easily angered depending on what sin you commit
8) shows that God does keep records of wrong if you do certain things
9) shows that God doesn't always protect because he's sending people to hell...the most unsafe place we could ever know or not know depending on how you want to look at it
10) blah blah...I think you get the point.

So this is how I feel about the God I call my own. My God is a loving God...one that is SO loving that he gives us the choice of heaven or hell even though he knows that the choice that we REALLY want is Heaven, but some people just don't want to accept that. How many times have you not done what your parents told you to do, when after you do it, you realize that what they told you to do was the right thing to do ultimately. How many of you HATE it when your parents force you to do things that they feel is right? God loves us so much that he showed us the right way to go AND he doesn't force us to do it. That is my God.