What is God really like?

• "God is love."(1 John 4:16) He's perfect love, just as he's perfect wisdom and power, perfect being.
• That perfection is what's uncomfortable about life with God, because perfect is the standard He sets. "Be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
• God is also perfect justice. He means it when He says: "Every living soul belongs to me...the soul that sins will die." (Ezekiel 18:4)

What does God think of us?

• A perfectly just God could only view us as candidates for punishment, for "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
• A perfectly loving God can only view us as objects of mercy, for "God does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
• (2 Peter 3:9)

Clearly, God won't lower His standards and we can't live up to them. And yet He loves us. So...