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Add to FavoritesIf you will, imagine for a moment a baby being born to drug addicted parents, who loved their drug of choice more than they did the baby; always using their money for drugs instead of using it to care for their baby. Imagine this baby growing up to marry a person who loved themselves more and put their own wants and needs before anything else including their spouse.
Now, imagine that this person, who from birth was never loved as much as they should have been by the people in its lives, dies and goes to Heaven only to have God tell it to its face that there were others that He loved more? Anyone who believes that God can ever love some more than others obviously don't have a clear picture of who or what God really is.. But the full blame for this ignorant type of thinking can't be placed just on those who believe it.
Since the beginning of organized religion there has been one religion or another telling their congregations that theirs is the favored religion of God making them feel as if they are special in God's eyes or more loved than others. But religion was not created by God - it was created by people - people who benefit from their congregation thinking that God loves their religion more than any others. Whether it is by God or just by other people, everyone wants to feel more loved than anyone else. It makes them feel special and that their existence has meaning, which it indeed does. But how egotistical is it to believe that God loves any one of us more than he loves any other? The fact that God loves us all just the same regardless of our beliefs, mistakes or bad choices is what makes God... well God!
The sad truth is that no matter how much other people love us in this world, that love is a responsibility that can at times be a heavy burden. Almost every choice we make, or even those we don't are based on the love we have for others or the love they have for us. Out of fear of losing that love, or disappointing and hurting those who love us, we often times make our choices for them and not ourselves.
But the one thing we can all count on is that no matter what choices we make in this life, bad or good, God loves us all without judgment and without prejudice. Neither our religions nor our actions have anything to do with it. And when it's time to once again return to our eternal home God will be there waiting to embrace us in that love. Then and only then will the magnitude of His love truly be understood...
Learn more about this author, Tracy Baker.
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Yes
Does God Love everyone equally?
We cannot answer this question without first defining the term god. Two different people may and probably do have a different definition of god. One definition of god may include that fact that god loves everyone equally and another one might claim the opposite. For the purpose of the article we will use the eternal, self-existent God of the Christian and Jewish Scriptures; Yahweh (Exodus 3:4), The Ancient of Days (Daniel 7), the triune God, God the Father, God the Son God the Holy Spirit.
We will not address the definition of love for 2 reasons. 1. We can assume that most people have the same or very similar definitions of the term. 2. We do not have the space here to define the term. Now that we have our definition of God, we can address the question of whether God loves some more than others.
Yes God does love some more than others.
The account of Jacob and Esau in Genesis (Chapters 25-35) gives us our first example of God's love between 2 different individuals. Rebekah was told by God that the older would serve the younger. The prophet Malachi records these words of our Lord, "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob" (Malachi 1:2 ESV). The apostle Paul tells us "As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." (Romans 9:13). There is much debate on the meaning of the word hated. It is usually defined as "hated" or "loved less". Whatever the meaning, it clearly shows that God does love Jacob more than Esau.
What did Christ Jesus have to say on this topic? "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life" (Luke 14:26 ESV). Remember the fourth commandment tells us to honor our father and mother. Our Lord's appointed apostle to the Gentiles command a husband and wife to serve each other (Ephesians 5). Jesus is telling us to hate our family members and even our own life. If our Lord and savior is telling us to hate our fathers and mothers, can He, who is God, love everyone equally?
In Leviticus 26:30 God says "and my soul will abhor you." When God abhors you, He cannot love you like he loves others. I submit that he hates you. If you look abhor up in a thesaurus you will find the word hate. The book of Psalms has many references to hate.
Learn more about this author, Robert Robertson.
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