I am, by training and career, a scientist. My career was in medicine, radiology to be specific. When I was in residency, I trained with a guy who was really, really smart. I know this because he never missed a chance to tell me how smart he was. One day he explained to me, in some detail, why it was mathematically impossible to perform an MRI scan in less than an hour.
This morning I had an MRI. My scan began at about 7am and I was out of the building at 7:10am.
So, what does this have to do with theology?
Scientists are constantly telling us what is impossible:
Creation in 7 days
God
The resurrection
Heaven
Hell
Eternity
An MRI in 12 minutes
But, there is a disclaimer that they never mention. This disclaimer should follow every pronouncement that any scientist makes:
“This statement is based on the one one millionth of the universe that I understand at this instant.”
For example: Dark matter and dark energy make up over 90% of the universe. Scientists cannot find either of these, much less understand them. And that is just matter and energy. Scientists cannot tell us how big the universe is. In fact, they cannot even tell us how much they don’t know.
When asked to explain anything, an honest scientist would say, “I am, for the most part, ignorant; but, here is what I understand today. Come back tomorrow for an update.
“It would be tragic for you to run your life based on scientific evidence that tells you that heaven and hell are not possible only to find out at your death that the scientists just hadn’t discovered them………yet.
The point is this:
Don’t plan your life based on things that scientists tell you are not possible. Because, the thing that was impossible today may be entirely possible, perhaps routine, tomorrow…….like a 12 minute MRI.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
The libraries and bookstores are full of texts telling us about self-esteem. If they are right, then self-esteem should be one of our highest aspirations. When was the last time you heard some expert say, ” Always remember that you are a tiny, almost insignificant blemish on the face of the universe.” Sounds silly doesn’t it?
But, in fact, we revel in our self-esteem. Comparing ourselves to our fellow man and promoting ourselves among our peers is in our nature. And self promotion is not necessarily a bad thing…….in its place. The problem is that there is a place where self-esteem is destructive. That place is in our relationship with God, our creator. God lives and operates on an entirely different plane. When we inflate our self-esteem to the point where we are co-equals with God…….or worse…….when we assign ourselves the position of supervisor of God, we commit a grave error. This is the world of the secular humanist. This is the world of the atheist and the agnostic. Unfortunately, I frequently hear Christians taking issue with some point of teaching from the Bible……from God:
Jesus was a nice man…….no more. Hell is just a metaphor All faiths lead to God Fear God means respect God……not fear God God used Darwin to build his creation Your sexual identity is a personal choice.
What is going on here is that we have allowed our self-esteem to grow to the point where we listen to God and then apply our intellect to decide if God is right. In practice, we give ourselves veto power over the word of God.
If we are honest, it gets even worse. Because, we don’t limit our oversight of God to our intellect. We also apply our appetites. Show me a Christian who rejects a part of God’s teaching, and I will show you a Christian who wants to do something that God has clearly told him not to do. The Christian who does this has a mantra that I often hear.
“But, I’m a good person”
And that is usually true……..as far as it goes. But we are also “bad people”. Every one of us. From Billy Graham to Adolf Hitler, every one of us has a thread of evil. This is where self-esteem goes off the tracks. We become so fixed on our goodness that we deny our evil. This leads to the fatal failure of many Christians…….the belief that “I am good enough” to earn paradise.
Let me be clear.
I am not “good enough”…….and neither are you.
The moral here is humility. How can I, a created being with a streak of evil running through me, pass judgment on my creator, my God, who is by definition perfect? There are only two ways to pull this trick off:
Inflate my self-esteem to the point where I can effectively oversee God.
Denigrate God until he is more flawed than me.
Both of these intellectual exercises are dishonest. Both are wrong. Even worse, both are profoundly self-destructive.
But, that is where a huge segment of our culture is today.
A highly inflated self-esteem may be holding you back from a properly formed relationship with your creator.
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
As Christians we are told…….we are expected…….to pray. We pray prayers of praise. We pray prayers of petition. It is not surprising that the bulk of our prayers of petition are for the benefit of ourselves, our family, and our friends. This is human nature. Put out the fire that is closest to you…….then worry about the fire that is further away.
In my Bible reading today, we are taught to pray for kings. There aren’t a lot of kings around today. They have been replaced by presidents, prime ministers, senators, and representatives. I think that it is fair to conclude that we are expected to pray for the political leaders in our world. This is where it gets sticky.
Some of the world’s leaders agree with me….with you…..with us. Some of the world’s leaders disagree with me….with you….with us. Some of the leaders in the political realm are good……some are simply evil. Most of them……like us…..fall somewhere in between. Current political thought is that we should hate the leaders who disagree with us. We are taught by our leaders to demonize anyone who disagrees with them. Donald Trump recently gave a speech where he proudly said that he hates his opponents. The leadership of the left casually throws out terms like Nazi and Fascist. I hear talk like this every day from people who tell me they are Christians.
But, “hate your opponent” and “slander your enemy” are not what the Bible teaches. That is not what Jesus taught. Both Trump and the left, while many of them identify as Christians, have clearly missed the point.
Jesus and the Bible are crystal clear on this topic.
We are told in no uncertain terms to pray for the leaders of governments. We are told in no uncertain terms to pray for our enemies.
Christian conservatives are told in no uncertain terms to pray for:
AOC
Schumer
Maxine Waters
CNN
Christian liberals are told in no uncertain terms to pray for:
Trump
JD Vance
Charlie Kirk
Fox
Both parties are told to pray for:
Putin
Xi
Hamas
Netanyahu
I think that you get the point. But, how do we pray for people with whom we disagree? How do we pray for people who are evil?
We can pray for wisdom. We can pray that they will turn to Jesus. We can pray for repentance and healing.
In short…….we can pray that they will hear Jesus……and respond.
We can pray that they will turn to God and align themselves with him……..not with us…….not with our favorite politician “du jour”.
Can you imagine a world where all of the “kings” consistently followed Jesus?
Instead of you and me.
That’s a prayer worth praying.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,[a] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Ruth is my favorite book in the Old Testament. It is unlike any other book in the Bible. Chapter 3 is my favorite chapter in Ruth. What is so different about Ruth and why do I like it so much?
At its heart. Ruth is a love story. It is all about faith, obedience, generosity, grace, and especially redemption. Ruth is an outlier. It is just different from the rest of the Bible. The most important fact in the New Testament is the Gospel of Jesus. Much of the Bible is historical……who did what and when. Much of the Bible is guidelines to living a righteous life…….rules. All of this is good and terribly important.
And then there is Ruth.
So, why is Ruth so important…….so different?
Ruth is important because it tells us why.
Ruth tells us why God did it all.
Here is the condensed version of Ruth. Ruth was a refugee, illegal, undocumented. She was a widow. She was destitue. She followed her mother-in-law to an alien land because she loved her and because she had nowhere else to go. She hoped to build a better life in an far away place. While there, without permission, she gathered scraps of food in the field of Boaz, a righteous man. One night, while Boaz was sleeping, she crawled under his blanket. He awoke and found her there. She asked him for his care and protection. And Boaz did just that. He used his resources to support Ruth and her family. Then, he bought, redeemed, and married Ruth. She became a great-grandmother of David……and ultimately…….of Jesus. Ruth was destitute; but, she was brave, bold, even audacious. Boaz was rich; but, he was kind, righteous, and generous. Both of them were remarkable human beings.
Ruth was a refugee. She had nothing material to offer. All she had was the woman that she was…..kind, loyal, loving. Boaz was rich and powerful. He paid for Ruth. He protected her. He loved her. All he got from Ruth was their relationship. And that was all he was after from the moment she crawled under his blanket…….from the moment she asked for his protection.
In her audacity, Ruth traveled to a foreign land and sought out a powerful protector. She had nothing to offer except herself. She had nothing to offer but relationship. Her protector, her redeemer, rescued her at a significant cost to himself. He did it because he, too, wanted a relationship. Ruth did not earn Boaz, she did not deserve Boaz. Ruth did not earn redemption. The redeemtion of Ruth was an act of grace…….by Boaz.
Any of this sound familiar?
The story of Boaz and Ruth is the story of Jesus and of me, and of you. We are destitute. We live in a broken culture and we seek safety in Jesus. We crawl under his cover and ask for protection…….for redemption……for a future. And Jesus pours redemption and blessing over us. We didn’t pay for it. We didn’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. It was and is an act of grace
All we can offer is relationship.
That is all Jesus wants from us.
But it goes even deeper.
I am not only destitute and in need of redemption. As it turns out, I too am refugee, a foreigner, an alien………… an illegal. I come from a harsh, hostile culture. I flee and search for a safe place. I have nothing material to offer. So, I find a kind powerful man in Jesus. I crawl under his cover and ask for protection……..for redemption……..for grace.
Am I really any different from the “illegal” at our southern border?
All I can offer………is relationship.
But, just like Ruth, that is enough. Relationship is what my redeemer wants from me.
At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter.
Isn’t that what most parents want? We want our children to grow, to succeed, to thrive. We want them to be happy……all day…..every day. We are proud of them when they succeed. We are proud of ourselves when they succeed. We brag about our children when they succeed. My father was proud of me and wanted me to take over the family business. My mother was proud of my achievements. She repeatedly asked me how much money I made. This was the metric she used to measure my success…….and, indirectly, her success. For most of my life I have used my mother’s success scale. I suspect that most parents do: a good high paying job, a stable career, recognition by our peers, a good wife, a suburban house with a white picket fence.
By my mother’s calculation, my children were abject failures. Two of my sons died in their 20’s. The third is in prison. Ask a hundred observers to score the sucess of my family and we would not do very well.
But, are we using the right metric? Was I using the correct yardstick to measure the success of my children?
I think not.
I’m not kidding myself. My sons took a long tortous route to get to where they are now. They did not score well on my mother’s scale. I remember sitting in my house one Christmas eve with a Boone County deputy discussing how to deal with a smashed mailbox. I remember posting bail on multiple occasions. I didn’t tell my mother. Only recently, have I realized that my mother was using the wrong scale. So was I.
The Bible offers us some guidance. You probably guessed that corporate position, community adulation, and net worth are not part of God’s metric for a successful life.
The Bible teaches that success is defined by spending eternity with our creator…….God…….who loves us and wants us to succeed even more than our parents. How do we go about acheiving that?
The guidance from the Old Testament:
“What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8, ESV
The guidance from the New Testament:
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Jesus explaining eternity, John, 3:36, ESV
This changes everything. My mother’s metric for success was worldly and temporal. It applies, but only to the brief period of our physical life. God’s metric, like God, is eternal. It applies to both our temporal physical life and to our eternal spiritual life.
My mother wasn’t wrong. But, neither is God.
Both metrics are valid. The key point is in understanding their period of validity. My mother’s metric works during our physical life; but, becomes completely irrelevant at death. God’s metric is eternal. You can follow or reject my mother’s metric. The consequences are extremely limited.
But, if you reject God’s metric, the consequences are eternal…….and they are catastrophic.
I have no doubt that my mother would have called my sons a disappointment. They did follow a pretty twisted path and to a degree still are. But, in the end, they recognized and accepted Jesus. By God’s metric, my sons were successful.
By God’s metric………I have been a successful parent.
During the past few weeks, I have watched an extraordinary outpouring of hate. It began with a hate filled assassination. And then the talking heads in our media stirred the pot with comments, some true, others blatantly false. Their object was to grow the hate. Finally, the hate spread to the grass roots level on Facebook and other social media outlets. Millions of people were in pain over the death of Charlie Kirk. All the while, voices on the left denigrated him, his family, and his supporters. All the while, voices on the right attacked the left over their reaction to the assassination and over their reaction to the memorial service.
Here is the heart of it.
A very bad man did a very bad thing…….nothing new there. He caused an enormous amount of pain…….nothing new there.
And now we react.
But, how should we react? I can see only one response that lines up with Christianity. We should be sad. We should be sad because of the evil and because of the tidal wave of pain that radiates away from this evil act.
Anger will try to work its way into our reaction. But, here is the problem with anger. Anger is outwardly directed. Anger has, as its goal, the attempt to punish others, the attempt to change the behavior of others. And guess what……the people whom we are trying to punish and change are angry too. This will not work. Anger attacking anger cannot grow peace and love. Anger attacking anger can only grow more anger. Anger attacking anger can only grow hate. And there is no question that hate is growing in our culture.
I have always taught my children that, when faced with a problem, first, you must accurately identify the problem. Then, focus on the part of the problem that you can control.
So…….what is the problem?
Hate.
What is the part of the problem that I can control?
My hate.
And there it is. In order to get the hate out of our public conversation, I must first replace my hate with sadness and with love. So must you. We must stop trying to hate the other guy into submission……it has never worked before……there is no reason to expect that it will work now. Instead, I must respond to the haters around me with love. Let’s face it, we’ve given hate a fair shot……and hate has failed to fix the mess. Now, it’s time to try love.
That, my friends, is the heart of Christianity. We are clearly told to love the haters into submission. This will be hard, time consuming work. It will take the rest of my life.
But.
God expects nothing less.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Jesus teaching the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5: 44-48, ESV
Darkness cannot drive out darkness……only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate…….only love can do that.
I am returning to a topic that I have addressed before.
I have been deeply saddened by the murder of Charlie Kirk. He was a great man. I am satisfied that he was spending his life doing God’s work. I am satisfied that he spent his life doing God’s work.
He was killed by a lesser man. The killer believed that he was silencing a fascist. He believed that he was performing a noble act. My first observation is that the killer was wrong on both counts. He did not silence Charlie, he amplified him. Going further, Charlie was not a fascist. I doubt that the killer could even define the word. But, the killer believed that Charlie was a fascist. And that was all it took. He believed that Charlie was a fascist because he had been told that Charlie was a fascist. Charlie was a pretty big deal. But, he was not big enough to be on the radar of the politicians and talking heads who casually throw the term fascist around. The killer thought that Charlie was a fascist because the people in his local social circle told him so. They, too, were wrong; but the killer believed them. And there is the problem. A group of people hate someone because he disagrees with them. They attach a hateful, untrue epithet to the guy they hate and then they spread the hate among their friends. A weak man, like the killer, absorbs the hate and then acts on it.
I am sure that the killer’s local social circle did not consider the low level hate that they were spreading to be important. But, it contributed to a murder. They were complicit. This problem is worse on the left than on the right….but it crosses the aisle. Donald Trump and Maxine Waters do it regularly.
Here’s the thing. There is no such thing as little, unimportant hate. Hate is like cancer. A cancer cell that is so small that your doctor cannot find it will grow into something that will kill you or someone you love.
There are way too many haters out there.
Are you one of them?
I know a lot of otherwise fine people who casually throw around hateful terms like fascist, Nazi, and Newscum. This low level hate is a cancer growing in our culture. Our leaders use hateful language in a crass attempt to increase their political power. And we believe them…….just like the killer believed his friends. So, we spread the hate. And one day, some weak man believes us and acts on it.
And we are complicit.
Were you outraged by the assassination attempt on Trump but silent about the assassination attempt on Gabby Giffords?
If so, you don’t hate the hate…….you hate the politician.
Were you silent when Letitia James was charged with mortgage fraud but happy when Donald Trump was charged with he same crime?
If so, you don’t hate the hate. You hate the politician.
By your low level hate, you fuel the fire. If you indulge in low level, conversational level, hate…….you are complicit. If you indulge in low level, conversational level, hate, you are a cancer cell trying to grow in our culture.
This is not what Christianity teaches.
Christianity teaches love.
Even harder…….it teaches us to love our enemies. It even teaches us to love the guy who killed Charlie. Not many of us can live up to that level of love. But, that is exactly what God does. That is exactly what God expects from us.
Not many of us are willing to let go of our hate.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus, on how we should love, Matthew 5: 43-48, ESV
This week’s post is for “seekers”……people who are searching for truth, meaning, and direction.
One day, soon, you will die. You can quibble about how soon, but you and I cannot escape death. So, after you die, what comes next? This is the single greatest and most important question of your life. It is a question with extraordinary consequences. Many of us have given it little or no thought. This morning you got up and got dressed. At that point in your day, you had probably given more thought to your outfit than to your long term destination.
So, what are the possibilities for what comes next?
Nothing….dead black nothing……the lights just go out. The world goes on without you.
You go somewhere very nice. Everyone there is nice. All of the mean people (that is, the people meaner than you) are somewhere else.
You go somewhere that is not nice. All of the nice people are somewhere else.
Everyone (nice and not nice) goes to the same place. Your roommate could be Dolly Parton……or Adolph Hitler. It is a whole lot like our temporal world.
You go to a place where everything and everyone is just the way you want it……your own personal “designer paradise.” All of your dreams, no matter how nutty, come true. You may be alone. Everyone else will be in their own custom built eternity
You are returned to this temporal world in either a better form or a worse form……and the cycle repeats……forever…….until you get it right.
You go to a place filled with people just as broken as you are. But, they have been fixed. You have been fixed. This place is defined by love, justice, and mercy. It is defined by an intimate relationship with your creator.
There may be other possibilities, but these cover the main categories.
Now, look into your heart. Because the answer is there. The answer is there because it was put there…….by your creator. Remember, you are looking for the truth…….not what you want to be true. What you want to be true……your appetites…….is completely irrelevant.
I have found the last option to be the best.
If you agree, then you should study this option. Begin by getting a “red letter” edition of the Bible. This will have the teachings of Jesus in red ink. Take a few hours and read the red part. For now, that is what you need to know. The rest of the book is background information. You can dig into the rest of the book later.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
I had a son who graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in computer engineering. I read his CV one day and it included the line:
“I have cloned things”
He was one of the smartest guys I have known.
He once explained to me how integrated circuits operate. He said:
“It’s actually pretty simple. They all run on magic smoke and I can prove it. One day, I wired one up wrong. When I turned on the power, it went POOOF and all of the magic smoke got out. I never could get it to work after that.”
His assessment began with a simple solid observation of fact. And yet, the undeniable fact led to a conclusion that was ridiculous…..in this case, obviously, a joke. But there is a moral here.
Facts are facts. But, it is very easy to begin with a fact, analyse it, and come to a conclusion that is not true. Sometimes, this process is inadvertent. Unfortunately, sometimes, it is done intentionally. If you have ever listened to a politician, you know this is true. There is a politician in Kentucky who often tangles with president Trump. I know him to be a decent, honest, honorable man. His opponent in an upcoming election is running ads that make him out to be a minion of Satan. The ads are based on facts. But they are untrue.
So where is this going?
The most important ideas in our world are several steps removed from measurable fact. The most important decisions that we will ever make are several steps removed from measurable fact. It is those steps that we need to be careful with. We are remarkable skilled at taking a measurable physical fact, analyzing it, mixing in our appetites, and coming to a conclusion that is a spiritual untruth.
This is important because we are surrounded by measurable physical facts. Because they are tangible, they are extremely compelling. Physical facts tell us where we are. They can sometimes tell us where we have been. But, physical facts cannot tell us where we are going.
In the final accounting, spiritual truth is far more important than physical fact. The path from physical fact to spiritual truth is littered with our justifications, rationalizations, and our self serving appetites.
So, how do we make the journey from physical fact to spiritual truth?
To begin with, we must have a reference point. We must have a benchmark to compare with. In our current culture, we are told that that benchmark is our appetites. We use assumption, justification and rationalization in order to shape the facts before us into the conclusions that we desire. Ten different people apply ten different sets of appetites to the same set of facts and reach ten different conclusions. This alone should teach us that our appetites are not a reliable benchmark. We need an outside benchmark to compare against. I can find none better than the teachings of Jesus. They are simple. They are clear. They leave no room for justification and rationalization. They are based on a value that we all sense in our hearts.
Love.
Our appetites, applied to the measurable physical universe, lead us to the conclusion that we are in charge and can do as we please.
Love, applied to the measurable physical universe, tells us that we are the creation of a God who loves us and that we should love and care for each other.
One of these paths is wrong. One of these paths is true.
The love that Jesus teaches, applied to physical facts, will lead you to spiritual truth. It will lead you to an eternity in paradise…….the seat of love.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
I seek God. Every day. Some days more than others. These are typically the very good days or the very bad days.
Why?
It’s a legitimate question. If you are a secular humanist, you probably think me a little quaint and naive. If you are a Christian, you seek him too. But, did you ever ask yourself, why? Seeking God is not looking for an answer to an immediate physical need like food, water, shelter, or security. God is not a physically obvious goal. God is a spiritual destination. The need for God is not physical; but, the need is compelling. With the exception of a few committed secular humanists (I have known 2 in my lifetime), that need is almost universal. You feel it too. Where does it come from?
The first answer is that I sense a deficiency in myself. There is clearly something missing in me. I wake up and walk out into a world that I did not create. Things happen to me that I did not cause. I interact with people in ways that I do not control. I sense that I am a tiny component of a giant ecosystem, an ecosystem that is beyond my control, an ecosystem that will easily go on after my physical death. I am not in charge. That leaves two possibilities: it’s all a giant cosmic accident or there is a creative intelligence behind it. I’ve seen enough accidents to know that this world is not an accident. So, I seek the creative intelligence behind this world.
Nothing new here.
But, why Christianity? There are hundreds of other options.
First, Christianity teaches that there is a part of me that will live on after my physical death. This is a truth that I sense in my heart. This truth too is almost universal. It is incredibly rare to meet someone who believes that death is the end. Most religions include an afterlife. But, Christianity stands alone in one regard. It is exclusive. Christianity teaches that there is a paradise and the only criteria for admission is belief in Christ. Even worse, Christianity teaches that there is a literal burning hell for those who deny Christ. This exclusivity offends a great many people. Fair enough. But is that the right question? Instead of asking, “do I approve of exclusivity?” We should be asking, “is exclusivity true?” The teaching of Christianity fills the intellectual void in my world. Furthermore, it is safe, in that, unlike any other religion, it immunizes me from eternity in hell.
Second, I seek God because I love his plan for me. I love his justice and mercy. I love the fact that he promises to make it all right……in the end. I love the fact that he has prepared a place for me……a wide, open, spacious place. I seek God out of love.
Third, I fear God. God is the creator. He created me. He created our incredibly complex, interconnected ecosystem. He created eternity. He created paradise. But, God also created hell. According to Jesus, hell is not some kind of metaphor. It is a literal pit of fire and it is eternal. And that is a bad thing. So, who decides where your soul will spend eternity? It is not Satan. If Satan were the gatekeeper of hell, we would all be doomed. No, the decision on your eternity rests with God. Fear is an entirely appropriate response to an entity who can and will send you to hell. Christians try to dance around this issue. Pastors avoid it like the plague. It is clearly not popular. But, is it true? Jesus endorses hell. That is good enough for me.
I seek God, primarily in the Bible. I seek him because I love him, his justice, his mercy, and his promise of paradise. But, in the background, I seek God because I fear his threat of hell. I seek him because he fills a gaping intellectual void in my physical and spiritual life.
God, paradise, and eternity complete me. In my heart, I know this.
Nothing else does.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus explaining the way to God, John 14:6,ESV
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Jesus explaining paradise, John 14:2-3, ESV
‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
Jesus describing the experience of a man in hell, Luke 16: 24-26, ESV
