If God is Love, Does He Love the Devil ?
Who will be saved? Who will get to Heaven?
Well, one thing is for sure. It is not up to you, or me, as to who will enter Heaven and who will not.
That said, there is a belief amongst some Christians that we are all saved. God loves us all. Christ died for all of us so that we may all be forgiven. We will all go to Heaven. A loving and caring God will not condemn some of His creations to eternal damnation.
I believe such teaching is a little confused.
Of course God loves us all, and Jesus died so that we may all be forgiven. However ...
John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Notice the conditional clause: "that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
See also:
Matthew 7:21 - Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what my Father in Heaven wants them to do.
Yet again, here Jesus says, "but only those ..."
It is clear from what He says here, and He has said on other occasions in the Bible, that there is a condition upon which someone will enter Heaven. Jesus mentions Heaven and hell several times in the Gospels. At no time did He say that it is a free for all and everyone will enter Heaven no matter what.
Think of this another way: If God asked you why should you enter Heaven; what would you say?
Let us exclude the usual platitudes like: "Because You love me. Because Jesus died for me." and so on. Why should you enter Heaven? If you were to die today, are you sure, for certain, that you will enter Heaven?
Of course, God loves us all and invites us all to be with Him in Heaven for eternity. But we have to accept that invitation. We have to RSVP that invitation. God loves us, but we need to acknowledge and respond to that love.
We do so by believing. By accepting God as our loving Father and Creator Lord of all. By accepting Jesus as His only Son. By believing and living according to the Word of God.
We are free to either accept God and His love for us, or to turn Him down and turn our backs on Him.
Of course ... we will all be saved and enter Heaven ... if we want to!!!
The final decision is ours. We choose to be excluded from Heaven by our behaviour.
By not understanding this simple fact, I fear that many are sleep-walking their way into hell.