LOVE UNCONDITIONAL

It was one of those days which can only be described as a “perfect storm” of positive reinforcement.

One after another I received a continuous string of email messages from a variety of people who wanted to thank me for my writing, or to encourage me in my ministry, or to affirm something that I had done or said.

It was glorious.

As someone whose love language involves “Words of Affirmation”, it was like a tsunami of love coming to me in a series of warm, soothing waves.

Driving home that evening, I was glowing from the inside out. That’s when I started realizing how great it is to be loved.

Not only is it great to receive love from total strangers who appreciate my writing, it’s even more amazing to realize that I am even more loved by the Creator of this Universe, every single second of every single day.

“Thank you for loving me, “ I said. “Thank you God for your incredible, unending, unmerited love for me.”

That’s when I started to hear from the Holy Spirit. He questioned my mention of the “unmerited” aspect of His love for me.

What I began to experience next was both an endless wave of His Divine love for me, and a quiet whisper that I should never allow anything to distract me from an awareness of His incredible love for me. Not even the idea that I don’t deserve it.

What followed was sort of a little movie in my inner thoughts. I began to review the various verses in the Bible about God’s fantastic and extravagant love for His people.

I remembered the verse that says God sings over me and quiets me with His love.

I remembered the verse where God says that His thoughts about me are more numerous than all the grains of sand on the planet.

I remembered the verse where God says that He loved the entire world so much that He was willing to step down from Glory, become one of us, humble Himself like a servant, and lay down and die – all because He would rather die than live without us.

I remembered the verse where God’s love is described as transcending knowledge, and that if we could just grasp how wide, and high, and long, and deep His love for us really is that we could be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

And guess what I realized next? I realized that none of those verses about God’s phenomenal love for me ever – not even once – cautioned me to remember that I was a worthless scum who didn’t deserve that kind of love.

Not once.

Let that sink in for a moment.

God loves you. He wants you to know it. He wants you to bask in it. He wants you to enjoy it.  He wants you to trust in that love. He wants you to experience it. He wants you to meditate on it. He wants you to take a deep dive into the depths of His love and to let it saturate your being, infiltrate your soul, permeate your heart and transform your identity from the inside out.

Let go of the idea that you don’t deserve it. Let it disappear in your rearview mirror.

Concentrate on His ridonkulus, splendiferous, ginormous love for you.

And then, get ready for the best part of all which comes when your tiny soul can no longer contain the vast ocean of His love and it all comes gushing out of you like a massive tidal wave of unbelievably unlimited agape.

Yes, His love for you is better than you can imagine. It’s over the top, beyond the moon, as vast as the heavens, and totally, gloriously, fantastically eternal and overwhelming. But it’s not about you. It’s about Him, the God who is love incarnate, getting into you and everyone around you.

We are empty, dry sponges that are desperate for one thing – the unending love of our Maker.

Once you realize this you start to see how “caring for the poor” isn’t the point. But loving people who happen to have less than you is.

You realize that “turning the other cheek” isn’t the point. But loving the person in front of you who has hate in his eyes is.

You realize that “social justice” isn’t the point. But loving the community around you enough to get involved in their suffering is.

You realize that “non-violence” isn’t the point. But loving everyone – even your enemies who want to kill you – is.

Being loved is awesome. There’s nothing like it in the world. Once you know how completely you are loved by God, the next step is to make sure everyone else around you knows how much they are loved, too.

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Why I Reject Calvinism

Calvin's Five Points are usually spelled out with the acronym T.U.L.I.P. which correspond to:

Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistable Grace
Perseverance of the Saints

Let’s take each one in turn and look at what they mean and why I reject them all.

 Total Depravity: To the Calvinist this doesn’t simply mean that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Instead, they take it to mean that everything about everyone is sinful and that sin touches every aspect of every person’s life. It’s also expressed as “Total Inability” which means man is incapable of even wanting to choose good or to repent.

So, if people are truly as depraved as Calvinists say, then no one could ever be saved because no one is saved without repentance and no one would ever want to repent according to this doctrine. Unless you also believed the second point of the doctrine which is:

Unconditional Election: This is the belief that the only way anyone is ever saved is by God’s choice before the creation of the earth. Some are saved by God’s choice and some are damned by God’s choice. It’s all about God’s choice and not about any human’s sincere repentance or desire to be saved since man is totally depraved (see point one above). In other words, Calvinism teaches that those who are saved receive salvation because God chose them so that they could repent, not because they repented.

This belief is largely founded on a grave misunderstanding of Romans 9 to 11. At any rate, if you accept this then you must also accept the next plank in this doctrine with is:

Limited Atonement: Since God has only chosen to save some and not all of the people, then the Atonement of Jesus is limited only to those who are pre-chosen, not for everyone on the planet. Therefore, Christ only died for those He was already planning to save ahead of time, not for the whole world. Calvinists hold that the atonement is “sufficient for all but only efficient for the elect”.

This means that God could have saved everyone on Earth, but He chose not to. Calvinism teaches that there is a select group of Christians with a set number of members that cannot be added to or taken away from. You’re either chosen to be saved or not chosen to be saved. That’s it. Next we have:

 Irresistible Grace: This just means that if you are lucky enough to be one of the number of elect, then God will give you the Grace to live the Christian life. This Grace is not resistible by the elect. It is forced upon you just like your election.  The doctrine holds that this purposeful influence of God's Holy Spirit cannot be resisted, but that the Holy Spirit, "graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ." This brings us finally to:

Perseverance of the Saints: This means that you will remain in the faith and you will never backslide, fall away or lose faith. Since your salvation wasn’t your choice, and since you have an irresistible grace from God, you will never and could never lose this faith. Good news if you’re one of the elect. Bad news if you’re not.

Those who are not elected have no opportunity to be saved, ever. It’s just game over from before the universe began. Those are the breaks.

The good news is that no one before Augustine (400 ad) ever believed or taught this doctrine. The cultic Manichaiens (a Gnostic cult) taught and believed this doctrine, which is where Augustine borrowed it from. John Calvin later refined it and because there was an attempt to refute the five points of Armenianism, the Five Points of Calvinism were created.

It is my opinion that the New Testament scriptures do not teach this doctrine and neither should we.

Why I don’t believe in the Five Points of Calvinism

Why not Total Depravity? Because God’s Word implores us over and over again to repent. It makes no sense for God to demand that people do something that He knows they cannot do, and especially to rest their eternal well-being upon an act that cannot be accomplished.

God’s salvation is conditional and that condition is met when men and women turn from their sins and chose to follow Christ and receive his eternal life within.

 Why not Unconditional Election? Because Romans 9 through 11 doesn’t teach that God is choosing individual people, it teaches that God chooses Christ and that anyone who is in Christ is saved. If you are in Christ then you are “elect” because you are part of the Body of the Chosen One who is Jesus.

The election Paul is talking about in Romans 9 to 11 is simply the identity of the Israel to whom God made His promises in the Old Covenant. Paul is clear to point out that not every Jew is truly Israel and he explains how God has the right to choose some Jews to carry the promise and others not to carry the promise. Again, this is not about salvation – it is simply about being the chosen or not being the chosen of God to carry the promise of God.

So, who is chosen? God has chosen to bless the faithful remnant of Israel. If a Jew has faith in Christ then they are truly Israel. If they are not trusting in God’s messiah, then they are not true Israel.

Again, this is not about salvation but about who is actually the rightful recipient of God’s promises and who is not. God has created two categories: Those who are in Christ (true Israel) and everyone else (those who reject Christ).

Who then are the chosen of God? Anyone who is in Christ Jesus. Who is not the chosen of God? Anyone who rejects Christ as Messiah. There are only two categories. As Paul explains so clearly in Galatians chapter 3, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (v.29)

Why not Limited Atonement? Because once you remove the first two points of Calvinism there’s no reason to accept this contrived view that God’s Grace is limited only to a select group of pre-chosen souls. Remember, “For God so loved the world…”

 Why not Irresistible Grace? Because God doesn’t treat us like robots. We can choose to follow Christ or we can chose to embrace our sin nature. This is why the New Testament scriptures urge us over and over again to guard our hearts, work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and not to fall away from Christ – because if we’re not careful we certainly can. Yes, you can turn from the faith and fall away from Christ and salvation. No one is “once saved, always saved.” If they are following Christ then they are saved but if they are not following Christ then they are – of course – not saved. It’s that simple.

Why not Perseverance of the Saints? Because as I’ve said above, we are free agents who can either chose to continue in our faith or we can chose to follow a path of sin and selfishness. God does not make us do anything, nor does the devil.

“Chose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” – (Joshua 24:15)

*NOTE: Obviously this is a very hotly contested topic among Christians. If you have questions or disagreements, I'm open to your comments. Please play nice.

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