God’s grace, love and mercy are bountiful and never-ending. There are literally hundreds of verses about God’s love, grace and mercy. Are you aware of what this means each individual person in particular? Have you considered how awesome our God is and what he’s doing to save each and every one of us?
God’s love is unconditional. It’s not based on anything other than his holiness. He loves all mankind unconditionally, and he’s made provision for every man to be saved. Accept the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s only begotten son, and you appropriate what God has made available to you.
God’s grace is defined as his ‘undeserved favor.’ He favors us because of his love for us. We are God’s favorites! It’s nothing we did to evoke this response from God, no, it is totally out of his love that he accepts us as we are and helps us become who he wants us to be.
God’s mercy is defined as his ‘withholding of merited justice.’ In other words, we don’t get what we deserve from God, instead he withholds that and gives us something good — his mercy. How many times God has extended his mercy to me throughout my life, and I know he will continue to do so because his mercy is everlasting.
II John 1:3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
I don’t think any of my readers will disagree with me at this point. God is love, whatever we have is by his grace, and his mercy endures forever.
So I have a question for you, and I’m not going to provide an answer here. I want to know your opinion on a certain matter. Are you willing to help me out and tell me what you think and why?
How long is 8 billion years? Can you even fathom it? Imagine 8 billion years from now and you’re in your glorified spiritual body, just as new as the day it was made. You’re full of health, vitality and have no wear and tear whatsoever.
Now imagine 80 billion years. That’s ten times longer and we can’t even fathom the first 8 billion years.
How long is 800 billion years? 800 times 800 billion years?
Now you’re getting the idea of what “eternity” means and 800 billion years times 800 billion years is just the beginning. It’s not even the first day relatively speaking since eternity has no end.
I don’t know about you, but the concept of that many years is beyond my comprehension. Forever is a very, very, very long time. It’s so long it never ends.
Now I want you to think about that relative of yours who refuses to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. The relative who is a decent person. The one who rarely swears, if ever. The one who never steals, is goodhearted, gives to the poor and loves his family. He or she works hard for a living to provide for him or herself and others. But that person does not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Am I to believe that person, who is unsaved because they have rejected the gospel, is to be sentenced to 800 billion times 800 billion times 800 billion ad infinitude years in a place of fiery torment? Forever burning in torment? What kind of a God would allow that to happen? Sorry, my question may sound a bit strange if you’ve considered it before and have just accepted the common doctrine of eternal torment. My question to you is, “Does that sound godly?”
God is love and he extends his grace and mercy to those he has created. I personally do not think that rejection of him and his son will cause him to torture someone for eternity. I for one couldn’t be too happy in paradise if I knew that was going on, could you?
Now if the Bible does teach eternal torment, then I’ll have to accept it and trust God to help me understand it. But does it? My heart has always been to seek the truth and to understand and apply it. How about you? Do you seek truth or just accept things without thinking them through or studying them out? I hope you seek truth diligently because that is all that matters.
I don’t believe in eternal torment. There are only two other options: 1) annihilation — Those who refuse to believe and those who haven’t believed by the time they die are forever lost, but they are dead, with no consciousness whatsoever — they cease to exist because they are dead; and 2) everyone is saved eventually after a period of purification in, say, the lake of fire.
At this point in time I believe in annihilation — the person simply dies and ‘misses the boat’ so to speak. I believe the lake of fire is what the Bible says it is — the second death — and death by definition is, “the absence of life” which is of course the ultimate separation from God.
I’m working on a research project on this subject right now and that’s why I’d like your input. The work is based on solid biblical research which is still in-process, but it would help me to understand what you think about this subject. Let me know in the comments area. Thank you and God bless you in Jesus’ name. May God’s love, grace and mercy overwhelm you!