HOPELESS

I literally did a double take when I read it. I use the Bible Gateway all the time for research. For whatever reason yesterday I clicked on the button at the top of the page for "Daily Wisdom." I found some, but not all of it was actually daily wisdom. Some of it reeked.

Sunday's was good. Brief, insightful, and an interesting take on the relationship between faith and works. Then I read Saturday's.

The title is "Is God All-Loving?" Not if you are the writer of this alleged wisdom. It claims, several paragraphs in, that "God's love and forgiveness are not unconditional."

The point is the old, hyper-Calvinist argument that God's love and forgiveness are only offered to those whom God knows will accept them, and that, thus, they are offered conditionally.

For the writer of that unwise wisdom, "God loves those who obey Him" and only forgives those who repent.

Semantically I could find a point on which to agree. One cannot realize the love and forgiveness God offers to that famous "whosoever" unless one turns and accepts it. How that can reasonably be construed as conditional on God's part is beyond me.

Join me in praying that Melanie Schurr, the author of this piece, finds the God of grace and God of glory who sent His son to die for everyone.

Conditional grace is not grace.