One of my personal favorite attributes of God is His longsuffering. If I were God (...hearing the collective sigh of relief that I am not!...), I would not put up with me and the things that I do.
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise [of His return] but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repenntance.
It is true that God does not desire anybody to go to Hell. He does not have pleasure in the death of the wicked. But some of the lost people in the world despise the riches of God's longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God, His patience and forbearance in pouring out His wrath on man, is meant to lead men to repentance (that is my paraphrase of Romans 2:4). Instead they just add wrath on top of wrath, adding more and more sin to their account.
But you know what, we as Christians are guilty of the same thing too often. We experience God's longsuffering when we do something wrong, and because He does not execute judgment right away, we deceive ourselves and think it's ok to get away with it. God's forbearance of judgment against us when we sin ought to be used for us to praise Him for it, rather than use it as a license to go deeper into sin.
1 Timothy 1:16: "...for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering..."
Just a thought...
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