Thank You for the challenge Thomas, and with a question that surely many people do ask! Yet many ask, "If God is real Why does he allow bad to occur?" Helen gave an insightful and I believe spirit inspired answer; it was beautiful! I think maybe there might be a variety of answers to discover. The passage speaks of being us being encouraged to Love even our enemies so that we would be like what God says his children are supposed to be like, and by this we must assume that God also loves our enemies and even his. Apparently he did and does since we have all been enemies of the cross at some time, even if we are not now; I've known people, including myself, who feel they may be dead today of God had not "kept" them even before they were saved. I cannot clearly recall how I learned something in theology about us being in a position today where God is not turned away from us in a way that would not allow for us to even have a way to come to him, but with this idea, we can see that God is willing today to be available to any who will come to him. So by this, we see that mercy is extended to this race today, and it is not a day or time of wrath for example or of God's uninvolvement or of his not even facing us, and the work of the Cross gained us this.
He rains on the just and unjust, today anyway, and we do know He is waiting patiently for as many as will to come to Him. Yet at the same time, there are benefits to being in the Lamb's Book of Life, and in your Life being built on the "Rock" and not sand. What benefits? For one, God tells us that those who delight in the Lord will see him answer Desires of their heart, and He will be a personal Savior, deliverer, Comforter, etc. Like any Father, he takes care of His own specially.
My general feeling is, in this Day of Grace, God's love is extended to All; it's just present today in this world. God cares for even those who take the Cross as an offense, in the spirit that Jesus had when he cried out on the Cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." The message from Heaven today is..God Loves You, and if he wants man to know that, and if He truly is the God of Love, and does love his man, why would he not look over him, as he waits and desires for all to come to him?
"How shall we escape if we neglect so Great a Salvation?" (Heb:2:3)
And Yes Helen...God also I feel has spared me many sorrows by not assisting me and sometimes even preventing me to achieve "my" will during times when it would not, if I have succedded, gained for me...God's will in my life! Many of our Greatest gains which have provided us the Greatest Wealth have come by many sorrows and pains...by having many lacks, and one reason is...We "recognized" our great need for God; if we had not needed we may never have turned to him, Amen?
There is great evidence in this world today of the apostacy that Paul and other Disciples continually warned the Church to be watchful of, and one of the biggies is that God wants us all to be monetarily wealthy. Did he not say, "seek those things that are above...?" and that Love for this world conflicted with love for God? And also that we can't "Love" mammon and God at the same time, meaning the lustful "Love" of money.
Don't take me wrong, there is balance to be known in all things, but I side with the biblical principles that love for money and this world do challenge most people's "First Love," whom God has said He desires to be to us. Even with all that I Love Him, I will never so proudly say that I am beyond temptation, knowing the powers behind it, but rather I thank God for leading my life with His wisdom which keeps me from things either forever or until I have the maturity and level of committment to God that will keep me from falling into Loving this world's things more than Him. Amen.
Great question Thomas to pose, preachergirl, Sis Kim