Why I Won't Believe in Predestination, in Calvinism!

Because I refuse to believe that anyone is beyond the reach of Jesus!  I refuse to believe that Jesus didn't die for everyone, that He didn't die for all sins, that He doesn't love everyone, that there are people without hope!

 If other people want to believe that, then that's their problem.  But I refuse to believe it because ... I don't think it's what the Bible teaches.

 I believe Jesus died for all, that every person can find hope and healing and salvation in Him.  I believe He loves all people and wants a relationship with all of us.  I believe that His death made salvation available for all people, but it's up to us to decide if we will accept Him or reject Him.

Calvinism - the idea that God has already predetermined who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, and that there's nothing we can do to change it - is a Bible-altering, faith-damaging, soul-deadening theology.  And I've had enough of it!  It makes me sick to hear how it destroys Jesus's sacrifice and God's love and God's grace, to hear that God causes unbelievers to reject Him but then holds them accountable for rejecting Him, to hear that God doesn't love all people the same, that Jesus didn't die for all people, and that it somehow brings God glory to predestined most people for hell.

It's sick!  It's insanity!  And it completely destroys the love, justness, righteousness, and grace of God.  It destroys the Gospel!

I think about this when I watch my favorite Christian movie "Do You Believe?"  After getting sick to my stomach with all the research I've been doing into Calvinism and after dealing with years of Calvinist preaching from our Calvinist pastor (whom I won't listen to anymore), it's so good to watch this movie.  Because it shows that we're all broken, yet we all matter to God.  That there's hope for all of us.  That no one is beyond His love.  No one is outside the reach of His healing hand, His saving grace!

No matter the life you've lived, the sins you've committed, the pain you carry in your heart, Jesus has already paid for your sins on the cross so that you can find hope, healing, forgiveness and salvation in Him.  If you will accept it!  If you will accept Him into your heart as Lord and Savior!  
I remember when I went to go see Unbroken: Path to Redemption (the rest of the story to Unbroken) at the theater awhile ago.  (Go see them, both of them!  Great movies!)  We're watching this broken, hurting man struggling with his fears and anger and hopelessness, and I couldn't help thinking, "How can anyone believe that there are hurting, broken souls who are beyond the reach of Jesus, that there are people who were deliberately created to never find eternal hope or healing, to suffer eternally!?!"

 What a horrible, horrible theology Calvinism is!  That some people - most people - are created by God to be lost and broken, to hurt forever, never to be found and healed.  That Jesus doesn't love all people.  That He only died for the "elect," not for everyone.  That if you are predestined to hell, you can't do anything about it because Jesus's grace was never meant for you, and that your eternity in hell was determined by God because it will bring Him glory somehow.  

I refuse to believe that!  And I think it does a grave injustice to the Gospel.  It destroys God's grace.  It turns God into the cause of evil, of sin.  It turns God into a liar.  It turns God into a monster.  And ... it's simply not what the Bible teaches.  

 I believe every person is loved and pursued by God.  Every person's sin was covered by Jesus's death.  That's the Jesus I believe in and love and worship!  

 Every person matters to Him!  Eternally!

He is holding out His hand to all of us.  He cares for and about all of us.  He is calling to all of us.  But will we hear and respond?

 Forgiveness, healing, grace, faith, and salvation are available to all.  But will we accept it?

 Jesus cares more about where you're going than where you've been!  He wants you with Him in heaven.  He loves you with an amazing love, enough to die in your place so that you can live with Him in heaven.  He's reaching out His hand, saying, "Grab onto Me!  Believe in Me!"    

 Will you reach out and grab His hand?

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