The backbone of Calvinism are these core beliefs.

• God's ultimate purpose is to glorify Himself.

  • This self-glorification is His primary objective and governs everything He does.

  • God elects people for heaven or hell according to this purpose of self-glorification.

    • Calvinists believe God is gracious to some and wrathful to others with no regard to the person's will or response. They believe God indeed loves those He's chosen to be gracious too, and indeed hates those He's chosen as reprobates, and this was with the purpose of displaying all His attributes which gives Him glory.

      • Therefore God's love indeed is genuine but only to some, and not because He needed to love them, but that loving them ultimately gave Him glory.

My challenge is this. If God can be glorified whether you are in His grace or His wrath and glory is His ultimate pursuit, how can you trust in His love? How can you trust He loves you?

• In order to trust in the love of God you have to trust that love is a core characteristic of God, one that governs what He does. If what He does isn't ultimately governed by God's love but rather by His pursuit of self-glorification, then you cannot trust or count on the fact that God loves you. You can only count on God loves Himself.

  • How can someone walking a tight rope trust in the safety net below knowing that safety net was installed by a man who only wants some to remain safe and others he desires to plummet to their doom?

    • Why would a safety net installer do that? Well, perhaps his ultimate desire is the attention it will get him.

      • Perhaps he desires those caught safely in the net to come and thank him. But equally desires those that plummet to their doom to get him on the news. If he saves everyone then he may not be as newsworthy, if he destroys everyone then nobody will come and thank him.

You see you can't trust in the safety net of God's love if you believe God's desires are mixed between saving some and seeing others plummet to their doom. 

• Some may claim to know they are elect and therefore can trust in God's love. The problem with that is twofold.

  • One, you do not trust in God's love but rather you trust in God's election.

  • Two, how do you know you're elect? You didn't warrant it, it wasn't your response, how do you know God didn't elect you to be one of the false disciples, how do you know God didn't elect you to be one of those professing to be wise but are really a fool? (Rom. 1:22).

    • Perhaps you claim the fruit you bear as evidence of your election, but Jesus said people will come to Him and will testify of some pretty amazing things, prophesying, casting out demons, performing miracles and other mighty works, and He will say to them “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:21-23).

I believe God loves me naturally, meaning it's in His nature to love me (1 John 4:8,16). That is a foundational belief of mine. Because I believe that about Him I feel confident walking through this life trusting in the safety net of His love. Where sin increases, grace abounds. No matter how many times I fall, nor how hard I fall, because of His ever present love, I can press on without fear (1 John 4:17).

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. - 1 John 4:16-18