How is that love?

'Do we get what we want?...the answer to that is a resounding, affirming, sure and positive yes. Yes, we get what we want.

God is that loving.

If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given power and strength to make the world in our own image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to that. If we want nothing to do with light, hope, love, grace, and peace, God respects that desire on our part, and we are given a life free from any of those realities. The more we want nothing to do with all God is, the more distance and space are created. If we want nothing to do with love, we are given a reality free from love."
-Rob Bell, Love Wins, 116-117

That sounds awful. That sounds like a parent should be loving by letting their kid run in the middle of the street to fetch a lost ball, with a car barreling down the middle of it. That sounds like loving your best friend by letting them drink poison. That's awful...how is that love?

Is not the love of Christ in the Bible that we don't get what our sinful nature wants? Because of the fall and original sin, we all choose a way of destruction...we all choose hell. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander" (Matthew 15:19, emphasis mine). "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6a, emphasis mine).

Whenever God gives us up to our sinful desires, it's because we've chosen them over Him. And it's not a 'gracious' thing God is doing here (like Bell suggests)...it's horrendous. "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen" (Romans 1:21-25).

No, God's gracious love is that in Christ, we have salvation! We are set free from our sin...we are set free from what our sinful nature desires and given a new heart. "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). "So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Romans 8:12-14). "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). etc.

Note: the restoration of Israel in Ezekiel 36:26 is because God wants to preserve His holy name...His holiness! Despite how Israel has sinned by their deeds (read from verse 16 on, or the whole chapter).