Jesus Died for All, Not Just a Select Few
Daily Scripture
2 Corinthians 5:11-15
11 So we try to persuade people, since we know what it means to fear the Lord. We are well known by God, and I hope that in your heart we are well known by you as well. 12 We aren’t trying to commend ourselves to you again. Instead, we are giving you an opportunity to be proud of us so that you could answer those who take pride in superficial appearance, and not in what is in the heart.
13 If we are crazy, it’s for God’s sake. If we are rational, it’s for your sake. 14 The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: one died for the sake of all; therefore, all died. 15 He died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The apostle Paul wrote that Christ “died for the sake of all.” That faith in God’s all-inclusive love and grace shaped his vital teaching about we treat everyone else (cf. Ephesians 4:29-32). It inspired his strong, urgent preaching—everyone needed to know the good news. John Wesley believed that, too, and not just as a theological detail. His belief that all, not just some, could receive God’s free grace (called “Arminian,” after Dutch preacher Jacobus Arminius) became a defining facet of Methodism. *
- Paul expressed a core conviction when he wrote, “So we try to persuade people.” If God didn’t allow humans the freedom to choose whether to accept grace or not, what would be the point of trying to persuade anyone to choose God’s ways? What differences do you see between trying to persuade people or trying to force them to believe as you do? In what ways can loving and caring about someone be more persuasive than arguing in an “I’m right—you’re wrong” spirit?
- John Wesley, in his sermon “Free Grace,” said, “However I love the persons who assert it, I abhor the doctrine of predestination.” ** That’s a better approach than the heated debates that “Calvinists” (after John Calvin, who said God predestined some people for salvation and the rest to be lost) and “Arminians” have had for centuries, at times even persecuting each other. Are you able to love people who hold different views, even if neither of you (at least for now) is likely to change?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, even when we Christians differ about just how you save us, we agree that you do, and that we are grateful for that gift. I thank you for the ways your love and grace are at work in my life. Amen.
GPS Insights
Lauren Cook
Lauren Cook, who serves as Director of Online Engagement & Entry Points at Resurrection, wrote today’s Insight. She is a self-proclaimed foodie, a bookworm, and is always planning her next trip. She has the sweetest (and sassiest) daughter, Carolina Rae, a rockstar husband, Austin, and a cutie pup named Thunder. She loves connecting with others so let her know the best place you've ever eaten, best book you've ever read, or best place you've ever been!
When I was an elementary school teacher, I had a co-worker who was pretty much my polar opposite. We had different teaching styles, different parenting styles, different relationship styles. We believed different things, and we approached life in different ways. If I said green, they said red. It would make me so angry at times. I would find myself spiraling in my own head, asking how they could possibly believe something they had spoken aloud or how they could treat others the way they did. I simply couldn’t understand.
The one thing we had in common, other than teaching? We attended the same church, the same service even. I remember one Sunday after church, I walked out and saw them from afar and thought: “I hope you listened today!”
It’s me, hi! I was the problem.
One of the things that I love most about Resurrection (and Methodism!) is our inclusivity and our core belief that everyone is welcome, everyone belongs, and everyone can receive God’s free and radical grace. That doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly challenging to remember at times. It can be easy to sidestep the truth that Jesus didn’t say to love the person who thinks/acts/looks/believes like us. He said to love our neighbor.
In Luke 10, we see a lawyer, likely attempting to justify himself and exclude those who seemed too different, asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In my story, I was the lawyer, attempting to justify my anger and my desire to make my co-worker the “other.” Jesus replied with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which made it very clear. Our neighbor is anyone and everyone.
We aren’t called to agree with everyone, we are called to live in the tension. We are called to love across divides. That’s messy, and that’s hard. However, when we remember that we, too, are in need of God’s mercy and grace when we speak too quickly or too harshly; that we, too, have been the judgmental one; we, too, have been in the wrong; we, too, feel passionately about the things we believe in—we can accept the love and grace God offers and extend it to all those around us.
What relationship might you reflect on today that needs a little love and grace, on your end? Where might you look more like the image of God and love through your actions before you use more words? What do you need to ask God for help with, a spot that seems extra tricky?
This is hard work, friends, but it’s worth it and our world needs it.
© 2026 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* “Wesley, following Arminius, believed that if God predestines some people to eternal damnation based on nothing they have done and solely on God’s purposes, then God is unjust, and God could never be unjust. Further, Wesley believed that the much broader witness of Scripture is that God loves the world, that Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and that God desires all to be saved.” – Hamilton, Adam, Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It (p. 94). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.
** Full text of sermon 128, “Free Grace,” at https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-128-free-grace/.
