Thoughts

So I thought I'd so a post with words. Sorry for anyone who didn't care for this :-).. ok, maybe not that sorry!

My thoughts about a week ago:

"Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?... Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?"
Paraphrased: "How can God be good if He sends people to hell?"
Answer: How could God be good if there was no way to judge/govern the world?
Example: what would happen if in our world, we suddenly decided not to punish murderers? Or perhaps something no so extreme: what if we decided not to, in any way, punish robbers? Rapers? Those who testify falsely in court? Leaders and politicians that steal millions of dollars? Children-abusers? What would that look like? How would that change things in our country? Now imagine there was someone who stood up for pure goodness. This person stood for no killing, lying, stealing, cheating, etc. But since he stood for PURE goodness, it filtered down to even the littlest offense... lying to your parents, cheating on exams, holding hatred in your heart towards a co-worker... It isn't that this person is over-excessive, it's just that he's found what pure goodness is, and he is standing for it. This is God. Now I don't know about others, but for some reason it makes me glad to think somebody is standing for pure goodness... and even knows what pure goodness is! I feel like the lines of goodness and badness gets blurrier every day here. And even though our government and law enforcement stands up for some goodness, they don't for all. So for me, there is something comforting about there being one who stands up for it all: PURE goodness.
Now this is where it is important to understand that this same person has the ability to take his stand for goodness and also to enrich it. Number one, he is able to uphold pure goodness in his court of law. He has the resources and power to take care of person after person who offends, steals, hurts, and kills. He also has all authority to give the just penalty to each offense. He stands for PURE goodness, remember, so really, each person in the world is going to receive some level of penalty for offending the purity of good. Secondly, and this is the part that people seem to deny, and therefore call God some horrible guy in the sky, God offers sweet mercy to each offender. He offers mercy to the girl who grew up hating her mother, he offers mercy to the man who raped 20 women and children and killed two men. His mercy is sufficient to blot out any penalty that might have been given to any level of offense. Wow. And then the miracle of it all, the only requirement for the mercy, is repentance. And with repentance, God grants a transformation of spirit that causes the desires for pure goodness to rise in the forgiven man's heart. God doesn't just let them off the hook to go continue murdering, raping, stealing, lying, etc. When a true repentance takes place, a true transformation occurs that is the biggest miracle and sweet gift seen on this planet. It changes individuals, it changes societies.