A Different Point of View

I sent an email yesterday to the people of the church I pastor suggesting that they pray for Senator Kennedy. In that email I wrote, 'If it is true that he is not a Christian then, unless something changes, he will face a very angry God.' As I thought about that today, it occurred to me that this sentence is viewing things from the perspective of the sinner one day facing God. It is sympathetic to that person in that he has to face God's anger. Such sympathy is appropriate - and a good motivation for evangelism. There are parts of Scripture that look at this situation from the very same point of view. But what if I were to do this differently and take God's perspective instead? What if I were to consider how God has been slandered and insulted and spurned by some rebellious sinner? What if I were to sympathetic to God as He has had to endure with the evil of sinners like me? What if my emotional response came out of viewing the situation from God's perspective and not from the sinner's? That puts God's justice in a much more positive light and makes hell much more understandable.