Surely God takes our intentions into consideration??

Today I called my insurance company to make a small adjustment to a policy. Adjusting the policy was quick. The agent then tried to sell me several other products, and we spent a few minutes discussing why I didn’t need them or didn’t feel they would be right for me.

Following that, she said that it is important to them that all questions and issues are fully resolved, and she wanted to make sure she had resolved everything for me. I said that the insurance was all taken care of, but that, if she had another minute before her next call came in, I had a question for her that was a little off topic. Her response: “Sure, go ahead.”

I asked if he she had ever heard of or taken the Good Person test, and she hadn’t. I let her know there was a moral at the end. I like sharing that there will be a moral at I don’t think they will feel I am trying to trap them or trick them (even though I am, in essence, asking them leading questions). On the other hand it’s hard to take the greatest truth in all of creation and refer to it as a moral, it is WAY more than simply a moral. But, an unbeliever would look at a spiritual truth as a moral, so that’s the word I use to give them “heads up” that we are headed somewhere in particular.

When I asked if she felt she was a good person, without even a pause or hesitation, she strongly answered, “Yes, I feel I’m a very good person.”

She wasn’t straightforward when she admitted to breaking the various commandments. Each time I would ask her about a commandment, her response would generally be “Well, I must have.”

That’s how she acknowledged lying and stealing. Despite being almost 60 years old she said she had never taken God’s name in vain.

When I asked about murder she said “No, but I’ve been so angry with some people at times that I’ve felt like doing something!” She said that while laughing, not realizing that she beat me to the “murder of the heart” punch!

When I summarized her condition before God (that other would look at her and see a good person but God, who is Holy and truly Perfect, would look at her and see someone who is a lying, thieving, murderer and adulterer at heart) she said, “Wow, that sounds pretty bad.”

When I asked her whether, after she died, God would judge her as being guilty of breaking His commandments, she said she felt God would view her as being innocent.

When I asked why God would see her as innocent, she said “Surely God takes into consideration our intentions?”

I didn’t go into the fact that when she was angry with someone, or told the lie, or stole something, or lusted – she was doing it with the full intention of being angry/lying/stealing/lusting.

Instead, I briefly shared how a crime is a crime. Our modern justice system is being overrun with Political Correctness and is starting to try and take “intentions” into consideration, but a crime is still a crime.

I shared that God would surely see her as guilty of having broken His commandments considering how many she had just acknowledged breaking, and I asked her where she thought God sent people who had broken His commandments. Her response, “That’s scary, but it’ll be a really crowded place.”

While she had interacted well throughout the “bad news” of the gospel, it was interesting that she wasn’t really interested in hearing the good news – in finding out how a guilty person who has broken God’s commandments and deserves hell can have their penalty paid for them.

So, in closing, I asked if she had a Bible at her house. She did. I asked if she reads it. She doesn’t. I encouraged her to read the book of John to find out what God did for her so that she wouldn’t have to go to hell.

Then I thanked her for helping me with my insurance problem, for taking the time to go through the Good Person test, and we then said goodbye.