This is what I find so disturbing though... Will God truly 'forgive' (supposedly) repentent child molestors, rapists and murderers. Yet, they will condemn a fairly average person with no major sins- simply for not believing?
This is interesting and I found it confusing when I was an atheist. Yes this is how it works since we are saved by grace not by works a repentent rapist will be saved. An infamous case of this is Jeffrey Dalmer who gave his life to christ in prison. But who are we to look down on others when we are sinners.
This world is made up of "average people" yet we are still cruel and depraved. Think of all the evil and infighting that goes on around us thats done by average people. We put ourselves on a pedestal away from the freaks and say we are morally perfect but thats not the case
The most logical way I can think about it is like this. Imagine a room of serial rapists and murders. As they talk with each other they won't be grossed out or think each other is sick. Theyll joke about torutue and canibalism and pat each other on the back. They wont see any fault with their actions and might start to admire eachother. Then get a room of more normal murders they'll hear about how gruesome the others are but they won't see how depraved they are. Then more tame criminals like thieves and they'll once again be sick by the murders but won't think its wrong to steal. Then get normal people to look down on all the other criminals as great moral people. But then have God stand over everyone. The Alpha and the Omega First and the Last Begining and the End. Just like murders and thieves we see no fault in our injustice but God is perfectly moral all knowing and all powerful. When Jesus became human he was non stop tempted by the devil and never succumbed. Yet we as normal people stumble more then daily. We are blind to the true weight of our transgressions as we have normalized them in our society.
We are closer to Hitler then to Christ
Revelations 21:17 tells us nothing impure can enter heaven. Heaven is perfect free from sin even us having one sin would tarnish it. The average man does way more then just one sin in his lifetime. The standards are high and our God is a shining example of moral perfection so if we want to be with him it would follow we must be pure which we fail. This is why we need God's grace. The crimes of the average person are so numerous
Why does an omnipotent God require a fan club to begin with- anyway? Imagine if our earthly rulers behaved like that? That it wasn't enough- that we obeyed their rules. That now- they insisted we sang them hymns and prayed to them and offered them thanks. It wasn't enough to just be a good person and a law abiding citizen- we needed to show them devotion as well. Wouldn't an outsider view such a practice as a dictatorship?
To worship a human ruler would be insane because they are flawed like us all. They have no ground to stand because all their own merit they would be dead in their sin.
We should worship Yahweh for 2 reasons
1. We become better people by devoting our selves to him. It is a privilege to get to know a wonderful God. In an interview Jeffrey dalmer said
"If a person doesn't think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what's the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges?, That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing."
Without making Jesus the center of our lives we would fall victim to the flesh and create our own subjective morality as Jeffrey did. Without God no one can say what is right and wrong because there is no such thing. Everything just is.
Thou shall have no other God's before me is the greatest commandment. It was even more prevalent in ancient Isreal with all the surrounding god's and ideologies. The Cannanites worshiped evil false gods. freaky sex orgies and child sacrifice for the gods were common practice. By having a deep love for God Israel were able to avoid these evils from infecting their society. However there were times in Isreals history where they strayed from God and instead picked up these evil practices. Jeremiah 7:30-31. As our worship for God dwindles we become slaves to sin.
Most of these crazy false god's are thankfully not worshipped anymore but it shows the dangers of idolatry. (You can make an argument that Islam is also very evil but im not gonna get into that right now) As humans we are always chasing a goal if we do not idolize christ other things will get in the way. Even if not towards another god we can worship ourselves, sex, our jobs, or even suicide (lowkey guilty of this lmao). Man can not have 2 masters If God is not our everything we will get lost in the vanity of this life and put virtue on the Backburner. Judges 21:25 this verse is so haunting as it shows without God as king we are free to follow the evils of our hearts.
Think about what God represents. Virtue holiness mercy and most importantly love. 1 John 4:8 in our devout worship we follow his law and become better then if we were to have ourselves as a guide. It is a gift to be able to praise our Lord.
2. He deserves it. Its pretty long already so I don't want to make it longer. He's all perfect and the goat unlike human rulers who are sinful. Its not egotistical to say Usain Bolt is the fastest if he litterally is. He should get the gold medal he deserves and christ should get the worship he is due. God is perfect is everyway. If people can glaze lebron and trump we might as well worship someone actually perfect. He also paid off an eternal debt for us the least we can do is say thanks big bro.
Sorry for making this so long and lmk if anything makes no sense. Ive been depriving myself of sleep to overcome SI soon I also typed this on mobile.
