The end of all friendships starts with the letter L…
The gospel is not “believe that Christ died for everybody’s sins, and therefore for yours,” any more than it is “believe that Christ died only for certain people’s sins, and so perhaps not for yours” The gospel is “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for sins, and now offers you himself as your Savior.” This is the message which we are to take to the world. We have no business to ask them to put faith in any view of the extent of the atonement; our job is to point them to the living Christ, and summon them to trust in him.
–Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer
Of course that is a bit of an exaggeration but it felt like it recently. I have very few people who I am close to and when one of them found out I was a Calvinist, they were heartbroken. You see we are an evil breed of people that do nothing except laugh at people who are going to hell. At least that is a caricature that some have based upon poor teaching and hysteria.
After a bit of back and forth, I said “I care about people and do not want them to spend eternity in hell. I want to be used by God to prevent that. Have my actions shown you anything different?” I look at my life and I ask myself many questions. Am I not praying for the salvation of others? Am I not working to be used by God for the salvation of others? Am I not willing to surrender my very life for the salvation of others?
They told me that my actions were not questionable but they could not see my heart. This did not hurt me at first but it caught me later. Years of anguish over people and they could not see my heart.
Things are better now. I pray they continue in that vein.