… in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.
What is your service to God? Is it to mete out justice? Is it your job to avenge bad behavior or insults thrown your way? Does God want you to go out and kill people who disrespect him?
Our God is a God of patience, kindness, and understanding. Our God is a God of love.
So how do we reconcile that with the portrait of God we see in the Old Testament?
One of the things we see in John’s gospel is that Jesus talks funny. No, he is not making jokes, but it is clear from the way he talks that he is not from around these parts. Anywhere around these parts. Not even from earth. He speaks from a perspective outside of time and space. He speaks from an eternal perspective.
The worldly view is to see life as all there is. Death is the end of the game, the worst that can happen. From God’s perspective, death is not the worst that can happen. The real “worst that can happen” is not being in a relationship with our Creator. While this life on earth is a gift, it is not all there is. It is not even a tiny bit of all there is. Life with God is your happiest moment on earth magnified by infinity and stretched out forever.
If a person foregoes their relationship with God and there is no hope of reconciliation, then why live? There is no reason for God to give them more years on earth. Old Testament judgment is not the end of existence for those people. It is merely the end of one part of their existence.
Today, every person has hope of reconciliation with God through his Son, Jesus Christ. Thus, it is to our benefit to be allowed to live as long as possible. God’s hope is that we might all come to life in Him through Jesus. For those of us who know our God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, life on earth is just a small part of what real Life is all about. When a believer is killed, even when the person doing the killing thinks they are serving God, they know they are eternally safe. Safe in the arms of Jesus.
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