Keeping the Right Focus

Several conversations I have had in the last few days have centred around judgement, hell, the lake of fire, punishment, etc.
My conversation partners were so focussed on these topics that they completely missed God's ultimate purpose to reconcile all people to himself.

God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
[Eph 1 : 9 - 10]

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Jesus, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
[Col 1 : 19 - 20]

When we focus on the judgement, punishment topics, isolated from God's purpose, and isolated from God's love and sovereignty, we quickly get back to the position that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross completely failed for the majority of God's creation, and man's will has usurped God's.

But when we focus first on God's love, will and sovereignty, we can easily see God's judgements and punishments as the correction of a loving Father, in control of his family, moulding his children to become the people he has designed them to be, in the likeness of his begotten Son, Jesus.

We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
[1 John 3 : 2b]

If we saw a parent smacking a child and knew nothing of that parent's love for the child or desire to improve the behaviour of the child for its own well-being we might have a distorted view of that parent and his/her character.
Equally, of course, if we saw a parent belting and belting and belting a child, for whatever reason, we would be horrified and would question that parent's love for the child and the motivation for the punishment.
Unfortunately, many people view God like this, as an angry, incessant "belter" of his wayward children, because they don't know his heart and purpose.

Let's focus on God's character and purpose first and then we will see how easily the punishment verses, correctly translated, complete the picture.

Blessings, Barry