The Rod Tidwell I-Love-Everybody God

If you don’t know who Rod Tidwell is, then you probably don’t recognize the famous line in Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money”, uttered by Cuba Gooding, Jr. as he tried to get Tom Cruise’s character, Jerry Maguire, fired up about being his football agent. At the end of the movie, Jerry does come through for Rod, resulting in a multi-million dollar contract. Tidwell’s response in the movie during a TV interview was as follows:

I love everybody!
I love my wife! Marcee!
I love my kids.
Tyson and my new baby.
My older brother and
my younger brother Tee Pee.
You’re militant, but I love you.
I love my teammates…

Rod closes his remarks by making a special statement directed at his agent, Jerry Maguire, and expressing a unique fondness for and relationship with Maguire. Now, no one can doubt Tidwell’s excitement at that moment, but it is obvious that he is going a little over the top with his love for “everybody”. Clearly, his love for his wife is different than that for his kids, which is different than the love he has for his brothers, which is different yet again from his love for his teammates, which is certainly different than his special love for his agent.

My point is simply this: For those who insist on declaring that God loves everybody, you must be prepared to make distinctions of what you mean by the word ‘love’, or else you risk making your statement (and God’s love) as meaningless as Tidwell’s was in the movie.

If by ‘love’ you mean that God does bestow blessings even upon those bound for hell (vessels of wrath prepared for destruction – Romans 9:22), then that must be clearly defined because those blessings (sun, rain, money, family, life, etc.) are merely temporal, fleeting things. If that is to be classified as God’s love, it is most definitely nothing but a vapor, as it will be gone, when compared to eternity, in the blink of an eye. Yes, Esau was blessed by God with earthly blessings, but God still “hated” Esau. Should that really be classified as love?

This is a bit of a risk, since I have not done a thorough study on this yet, but I would like to see from Scripture, if it exists, where God declares that He loves everyone. I know it can be found in our songs (Jesus Loves The Little Children), and in our evangelism (Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life), but is it in the Word of God? I look forward to seeing if it is…