Gyhldeptis,
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My meaning was that Jesus told us to love everyone, even non-believers.
Loving everyone does not mean we must explore their beliefs and accept false teaching. The problem today, we, as a society, have redefined love to mean we must accept all beliefs as equal. The problem is, that is the watered down, man made version of what love is to be. God is love, He is the author of love. Biblical love is far different than the mushy new age version of love we have today. Let me barrow from another post to show you what love is supposed to be.

The bottom line is simple but it is also one of the hardest answers to convey to someone who does not know God. All of us came from the same vile stock:
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Romans 3:22-24 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus
Not one of us deserves to live, yet God loves us and sent His only Son to die in our place. He did that out of His love and mercy.

We need to understand a little bit about God and His character before we go on. God is holy:
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Leviticus 11:44 For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
We also know that God demands death for our sins:
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Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
There are also consequences for our sins:
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Genesis 9:1-6 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

God is just in His judgments:
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Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
He is merciful:
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Nehemiah 9:31 Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.
And again we see God's love and mercy:
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Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.


So we know that God is holy, just, merciful and loves us, but what does that have to do with His love for us? It has everything to do with why. We see it in this passage:
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2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
God wants everyone to come to repentance. Unlike us, God loves everyone, including those we think are unlovable. In the past week two police officers in the have been killed in the line of duty. They answered a domestic disturbance call and were shot dead. As I prayed for these men's families and the other officers God laid it on my heart to pray for their killer. I struggled with it because I did not want to pray for him. He is unlovable in my natural (human) heart, but God reminded me that He loves this man. I find myself much like Jonah, I know God is merciful and I know that if this man truly repents and asks for forgiveness God will forgive him. I struggle with that. My heart tells me that he deserves to be punished for eternity for what he did.

I am right of course, he does deserve to spend eternity in hell for killing those two officers, but I am blinded to my own just as deserved condemnation. Yes I have been washed by the blood of the Lamb and therefore no longer merit hell, but only because God has credited my account with Christ's righteousness.

As we saw God is holy and can't abide sin, His holy nature demands payment for sin. In His mercy He has postponed that payment until our physical death so that while we are alive we have the choice to repent and be saved or to rebel and ultimately pay for our sins in eternal torment. There is no "little" punishment for "little" sins; death, spiritual death is always the punishment for all sins.

That is important because if God were to stop evil in its tracks today, His holy nature would demand that those who sinned be punished. So those people who sinned would be put immediately into eternal torment. Since we have all sinned, only those who have repented and accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior would be left. There would be no chance for the rest to repent. Think about this, if God put people in hell the moment they sinned, who of us would be here? None. Adam and Eve would have had no children. But even if they did, which one of us would still be here? Which one of us can say that we never sinned and therefore never would have been sent immediately to hell? None of us and that is the point.

Yes God could stop evil and sin today but because He loves us (mankind) He is patient and allows the evil to continue so that more people will come to know Him. I praise God that He did not destroy everyone who sinned while I was a sinner, how about you?

Bad things do happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, but again we look at things with human eyes. Who are the good people? Jesus said that only God was good. God will one day stop all evil and demand an accounting but in the mean time He is showing His love for us by allowing things to continue. God could rapture out of this world every person as soon as they repent and take Jesus Christ as their Savior, but He doesn't and again it is for the same reason. He loves the sinner and wants them to repent.
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Romans 10:14-15 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

I won't go so far as to say that we should praise God every time we see evil in this world, but instead of questioning God's character we should understand that the very presence of evil shows God's great love and patience. 1
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Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
For those who do not know God, the fact that He allows evil to continue because of His great love is foolishness, but to those of us who have been saved there is no sweeter message.




a servant of Jesus Christ,Kevin