I love you. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, I love you. I love you as much as possible, in the purest and most sincere way, so much so that I can do nothing but love you. I am love.
(Not really, but let's say I am.)
How will I treat you? The best possible way? Showering you with gifts and praise and joy? But no, if I love you, I can't just let you be evil, because evil does not love, but love demands love. Love is so great that if you do not love, I, in loving you, have a problem with you.
And you all just happen to be pretty damn evil.
The Problem: I made you evil.
It was necessary to make you evil. Why? Because love requires free will, and free will creates innate evil, because only I am love.
I made you something that was evil, and even when I send my followers to convince you to do good, it is I who will again make you evil all the same:
Exodus 4:
21 The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
Exodus 7:
3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.
Exodus 9:
12 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.
Exodus 10:
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD."
20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.
27 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go.
Exodus 11:
9 The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." 10 Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.
Exodus 14:
3 Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' 4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this.
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!"
I am good, but you, who I make evil, are evil. No matter how many times I reveal myself to you, I will choose to keep you evil. I do this not to show you the way, but to show the way by you.
Incidentally, in the process, I killed all of your firstborn. Men, women, children, babies, because of you. (This was out of love, as are all of my actions.)
But, in giving you "free will", wherein I harden you into evil, I am not to blame, and you are.
Romans 9:
14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
The Answer to the Problem: I made you evil because I am good.
This is the nature of my love. I am love. Oh, and do not forget Malachi 1:
2 "I have loved you," says the LORD.
"But you ask, 'How have you loved us?'
"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals."
I also hate. Perhaps I forgot to mention that.
Yes, I love and I hate. This is the nature of my love. I hate, and I will take everything away from those I hate; I will lift them up high only to destroy them and show that I am good and they are evil. They are evil because I have made them evil, hardened them evil; I have made them evil to show my goodness, because I am good, because I am love.
You will come to love me if I choose for you to love me. I know you, have known you from the beginning; I know what you could be, and I know what you will be. With that in mind, I have shaped your life and shown you what I will, and denied you what I will.
Lest we forget Matthew 11:
23And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. 24But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."
I know what will make you believe in me and love me. It differs between each of you. I will choose what each person will or will not see, knowing whether or not it will convince them. Though I wish for all to love me, some I will not show what is needed; others I will show the same deeds where it will not help. In my love for you, I will select your fate.
Romans 8:
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
2 Thessalonians 2:13:
But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.
The fact that you are puppets is inescapable. For you to claim that you are free is to be made by me to say so. I control you because I love you. Specifically, I love some of you, and hate others of you; I hate those I have made evil, and love those who I have made to love me.
Matthew 13:
40"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
I will burn all but those I have chosen. All others exist to be destroyed as an example of my glory. This is because I am love. This is the nature of love. To doubt this is to not know love.
Do you know love?
.
.
.
Forever shall I act at Thy command;
Alpha began, as will omega end.
I pray Thee, then, with Thy almighty hand,
In worship may Thou bring my knees to bend.
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