Why do some people have mixed emotions about God?  Is it because of what they read in the Bible about how God punishes?  Or is it because of the symbolism that they read about in Revelations and other parts of the Bible that deals with prophecy? 

     In all of the cases of punishment brought against names in the Old Testament, (except Job) the punishments were warranted because of wrong doing.  What a person should take away from those instances is that God does not like sin.  Not anyone will get away with sin.  But the Bible says that God does love each and every one of us, and His Word plainly states that. 

Two parables come to mind that talk specifically about the individual lost person. 

In Luke 15:8-10 it talks about the woman who had ten silver coins and losses one.  She turns the house inside out to find that one lost coin, and when she has found it she calls all of her friends together saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost’. 

And the Parable we all think about when you see a picture of Jesus carrying a sheep.  The Parable of the Lost Sheep is about the shepherd who is tending 100 sheep and discovers that one is missing.  He says, "Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?  When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’

Both Parables have similar last sentences, just worded a little different.  They both mention how there will be joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents.  Even more so than of the 99 righteous people who need no repentance?  Jesus and the Holy Spirit are constantly in search of that one lost soul that is in need of saving.  

In the New Testament, 2 Peter 3:9 we see more patients;   The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.  That patients of God reads all the way into that prophetic book of Revelation.  During the final trumpets and bowls of God’s wrath on the sinners, there is in chapter 9 the comment; 20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

 Imagine how much the Creator of the Universe loves you if He is still waiting for you to repent as He is passing out the final blows to the earth as we know it. 

So, believe it when someone tells you that God loves you.  You can take it personal, you can count on it.