Refined by Love

I think that as I am refined by God in my pursuit of His heart, my heart for His people is slowly being redefined and renewed. When I see a person making so many mistakes, and I can clearly see their drifting away, my heart breaks for them, and I see just a glimpse of the sadness that God has for His children.

The situation is made clearer to me every day - I see with greater shame the fact that God sent His Son to earth and went through the horror of tearing a piece out of the Godhead in order to save us. And yet, at the same time, I feel an equally strong feeling of thankfulness and love for this Father who loved me enough to do all of that. Every day, it seems like, I see or hear about another one of His children rejecting this amazing sacrifice and pursuing the world. Every time it seems to hit harder and deeper in my soul. I feel a terrible anguish for the people around me.

I am in the process of writing a paper for one of my classes. It is on the subject of Hell and its necessity, and how it can be balanced against the idea of a loving and caring God. As I study the horrors of Hell and the reality that is portrayed in the Bible, it further makes my heart cry for a change - I so desire for they whose souls (and bodies) will burn in anguish in a literal, eternal, dark fire for all of eternity for the simple reason that they could have, should have accepted the message of God.

I have always prayed for God to reveal Himself to me and to form me to Himself. I believe that He is beginning to do that - starting, perhaps, by creating in my a deep love for His people and a great longing for them to be reconciled to Him. I pray now that this would continue - that I would always be refined to greater purity and greater love, that I may show only a glimmer of the Light.