by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
God loved us at our worst, but that never meant He accepted us all without repentance and change (Romans 5:8; Luke 13:3; Acts 2:38). So, God’s love motivates us to change so that He can accept us into fellowship. Love does not mean automatic acceptance into fellowship.<\/p>\n
God loves us all, but the 3000 had to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus before they could be forgiven of sins and accepted into fellowship with God (Acts 2:36-41). Love did not automatically accept them. Love is a good incentive to repent (Romans 2:4ff); without repentance, love is wasted on us. Love longs for our repentance (II Peter 3:9) because God cannot accept us into salvation and fellowship without it.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Terry Wane Benton God loved us at our worst, but that never meant He accepted us all without repentance and change (Romans 5:8; Luke 13:3; Acts 2:38). So, God’s love motivates us to change so that He can accept us into fellowship. Love does not mean automatic acceptance into fellowship. God loves us all,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1571,65],"class_list":["post-69153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-forgiveness","tag-love"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33370,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/love-and-repentance\/","url_meta":{"origin":69153,"position":0},"title":"Love and Repentance","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton It is common these days to hear people use scriptures that say that God \"loves\" everyone and commands us to love everyone. But they use this to mean that God \"accepts\" everyone regardless of their sin and attitude toward sin. They often call this \"unconditional love.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66573,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/you-make-this-people-trust-in-a-lie\/","url_meta":{"origin":69153,"position":1},"title":"You Make This People Trust in a Lie","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Text: Jeremiah 28:15 Jeremiah confronted some popular teachers of his time and rebuked them for getting people to trust in lies. It has happened since the Garden of Eden that people trust in lies. There are plenty of preachers willing to give false assurances. Religious leaders\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":85710,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/perversion-of-the-love-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":69153,"position":2},"title":"Perversion of the Love of God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 18, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Many want to continue a sinful practice so much that they think they can use the love of God to justify it. God does so love the world that He gave His Son to die for sinners. He loved me while I was yet a sinner\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40103,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/unconditional-love-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":69153,"position":3},"title":"Unconditional Love?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Benton in Answering Religious Error, April 15, 2015 That God's love is \"unconditional\" means one thing to one person and a different thing to someone else. The Bible does not use the expression \"unconditional love\" but does imply it. God \"so loved\" the world (John 3:16). That would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":87448,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/love-is-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":69153,"position":4},"title":"Love Is Love?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This is gay pride month to some people. But one should not celebrate sin. The word of God is very clear about this (Romans 1:24ff; I Corinthians 6:8-10). The message of God is that He loves you and wants you, but He gives you reasons to repent (change), and repentance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33175,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/handling-the-scriptures-aright\/","url_meta":{"origin":69153,"position":5},"title":"Handling the Scriptures Aright","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Audience Confusion is present when the scriptures are not \"handled aright\" (II Timothy 2:15). False teachers handle the word of God \"deceitfully\" (II Corinthians 4:2). There are basics to handling the scriptures carefully and correctly. Know who is writing and who they are writing to. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}