DAILY BYTE
[Parts of today’s devotion have been adapted from John Ortberg].
Lewis Smedes, a renowned ethics professor and author, used to love to ask his students if they wanted to go to heaven when they died. Almost everyone would raise a hand. Then he would ask, “Be honest, now – who would like to go right not, today, before the sun goes down?”
There would be a little more ambiguity at this point. A few would raise their hands, but most people would opt for that moment to be delayed for quite a few years!
There is a final form to this question however. How many of you would like for the earth to get fixed up ... right now? No more babies with bloated bellies from hunger. No more stories about corporate greed and corruption. No more guilty, awkward distance between people of different races. No more souls tortured by addictions of one form or the other. No more battered children. No more ambulances. No more hearing a siren and wondering who its going for.
No more caskets. No more soldiers. No more wars. No obituary writers. Everybody has a place they love to live. Everybody has work they love to do – that brings joy and fulfilment. Everybody has people they love to befriend – connections that feel like family – no more orphans and widows.
How many would like for every sword to be beaten into plough shares? For the lions to lie down with the lambs? For peace to break out and justice to flow like water? For the defeat of death and the triumph of joy? And over all of this for there to be a God that we can all lovingly and meaningfully abide in and love each other through.
Well, if you want all of that then you want what it is that Jesus always talked about. Then you want heaven, and then you can become gripped and inspired by what is to come. You can be filled with joy and hope as you rejoice in God’s great plan to save not just you and me, but to redeem all of creation itself.
And doesn’t that sound good?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Below you will find the prayer of St. Francis which powerfully sums up everything that we have been talking about for the last two days. Pray it constantly over the course of this weekend as a way of allowing your life to become a channel or conduit for God’s Kingdom.
Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me bring you love;
Where there is injury, your healing pow'r,
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness, - only light,
And where there's sadness, ever joy.
O Spirit, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul - .
Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we're born to eternal life.
Monday, 25 May 2009
Thursday 28th May - Rethinking heaven & hell – It’s not just ‘up there’ and it’s not just ‘for later’
DAILY BYTE
The final and very common misconception regarding heaven that we shall deal with can be summarised in the phrase – it’s not just ‘up there’ and it’s not just ‘for later’. If you have become used to envisioning heaven as a place separate from earth, somewhere far away, way beyond the blue, well that’s not how the Bible sees it, not at all.
As the celebrated New Testament scholar, Bishop N.T. Wright reminds us:
“The early Christians, and their fellow first-century Jews, were not, as many moderns suppose, locked into thinking of a three-decker universe with heaven up in the sky and hell down beneath their feet.”
The Hebrew view was that heaven was all around us and that heaven and earth are two different dimensions that interlocked and interweaved in some mysterious but magnificent way. Significantly, the final picture given us in Revelation 21 is of a marriage between a new heaven and a new earth. Just as the spiritual and material are wonderfully married in all human beings already, so one day heaven and earth will find their ultimate completion in each other.
The cosmology of the Ancient Near East believed that the structure of the universe was such that above the earth there were no fewer than seven heavens. The first heaven referred to the atmosphere around our heads, and quite literally the air that we breathe. This is a really important distinction because if we operate on the understanding that heaven is separate and far away, then when Jesus tells us to pray to ‘Our Father in heaven’ it actually means, ‘Our Father who is far away.’ However, because Jesus saw heaven as all around us (including both immediate space and all the vastness of our universe), then he is actually teaching us to pray something like, ‘Our Father who not only fills the entire universe but is also right here with us, close at hand.’
So because heaven is not just ‘up there,’ it dramatically effects how we should be acting right now. We learn that God’s Kingdom, the sheer heaven of it, is not just for tomorrow – some future date to come - but can be known, lived, breathed, experienced in the right here and right now. (As our Sacraments remind us – we can experience ‘foretastes’ of the heavenly banquets to come).
For you see, everything that we do (or don’t do) really, really matters because we either bring something more of heaven or more of hell into the here and now by how we live: Either more of the wealth of love, grace and joyful God-given relationship, or more of the hell of selfishness, pride and regretful loneliness. Again, it was C.S. Lewis who warned us that even in our very smallest choices, we daily transform ourselves either into a little more of a heavenly creature or a hellish one.
Our mission is to bring something of the hope and goodness of heaven into the right here and right now!
PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious God, open the eyes of my soul to see and recognise that heaven surrounds me! Your loving presence, your goodness and grace are as near to me as every breath I take. May your Kingdom come and may your will be done in me just as it is in heaven. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Revelation 21: 1-5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
The final and very common misconception regarding heaven that we shall deal with can be summarised in the phrase – it’s not just ‘up there’ and it’s not just ‘for later’. If you have become used to envisioning heaven as a place separate from earth, somewhere far away, way beyond the blue, well that’s not how the Bible sees it, not at all.
As the celebrated New Testament scholar, Bishop N.T. Wright reminds us:
“The early Christians, and their fellow first-century Jews, were not, as many moderns suppose, locked into thinking of a three-decker universe with heaven up in the sky and hell down beneath their feet.”
The Hebrew view was that heaven was all around us and that heaven and earth are two different dimensions that interlocked and interweaved in some mysterious but magnificent way. Significantly, the final picture given us in Revelation 21 is of a marriage between a new heaven and a new earth. Just as the spiritual and material are wonderfully married in all human beings already, so one day heaven and earth will find their ultimate completion in each other.
The cosmology of the Ancient Near East believed that the structure of the universe was such that above the earth there were no fewer than seven heavens. The first heaven referred to the atmosphere around our heads, and quite literally the air that we breathe. This is a really important distinction because if we operate on the understanding that heaven is separate and far away, then when Jesus tells us to pray to ‘Our Father in heaven’ it actually means, ‘Our Father who is far away.’ However, because Jesus saw heaven as all around us (including both immediate space and all the vastness of our universe), then he is actually teaching us to pray something like, ‘Our Father who not only fills the entire universe but is also right here with us, close at hand.’
So because heaven is not just ‘up there,’ it dramatically effects how we should be acting right now. We learn that God’s Kingdom, the sheer heaven of it, is not just for tomorrow – some future date to come - but can be known, lived, breathed, experienced in the right here and right now. (As our Sacraments remind us – we can experience ‘foretastes’ of the heavenly banquets to come).
For you see, everything that we do (or don’t do) really, really matters because we either bring something more of heaven or more of hell into the here and now by how we live: Either more of the wealth of love, grace and joyful God-given relationship, or more of the hell of selfishness, pride and regretful loneliness. Again, it was C.S. Lewis who warned us that even in our very smallest choices, we daily transform ourselves either into a little more of a heavenly creature or a hellish one.
Our mission is to bring something of the hope and goodness of heaven into the right here and right now!
PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious God, open the eyes of my soul to see and recognise that heaven surrounds me! Your loving presence, your goodness and grace are as near to me as every breath I take. May your Kingdom come and may your will be done in me just as it is in heaven. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Revelation 21: 1-5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
Wednesday 27th May - Rethinking heaven & hell – It’s not just streets of gold or lakes of fire!
DAILY BYTE
What we often tend to forget when speaking of heaven and hell, is that the writers of Scripture were attempting to express to us what actually defies description. For example, if you had to describe a car to someone who lived thousands of years ago, how would you do it? Well, you would have to use symbols.
“It’s something like a giant metal box that glides along on four smooth, round objects,” you might well say.
You would have to use images of what they know, to convey something that they don’t know, (and even then your description would probably fall short of fully describing what a car is really like).
This is precisely what the authors of Scripture are attempting to do when it comes to heaven and hell. They make symbolic attempts to express the inexpressible. C.S. Lewis reminds us that if we want to take these symbols literally, and complain that heaven is nothing more than sitting around on clouds playing harps, then we might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, he intended for us to lay eggs.
So when some common images are used of heaven, like streets paved with gold, pearl-lined gates, or casting crowns, then we are being reminded that heaven is inexpressibly beautiful, and all that is truly worth something in this world will be found there too.
Remembering of course, that the treasures in heaven Jesus commanded us to store up have far more to do with relationships and love than with actual silver and gold. Thus, images like the streets of gold are symbolic attempts to express the incredible beauty of the joyful relationship with God and others that we will know in heaven.
As soon as we move onto some of the hell imagery in Scripture, we might begin to grapple with another very common human question, which is:
‘Why would a loving God allow hell to exist?’
Again, let’s not forget that these hell images are attempts to explain the unexplainable. The lakes of fire and places of total darkness, are actually meant to be symbols and metaphors of what life will be without God’s saving and loving presence – of being burnt up by regrets that you are no longer in a position to resolve, or of suffering in the darkness of your own pride and selfishness.
Today’s focus reading reminds us that God is not willing that any should perish, but would have all come to repentance. God will always be trying to reach us and to connect with us, BUT he will never take away our choice to say ‘no’ to him because that would defeat the framework of true love ... free choice.
So it is possible to be cut off from God, not because he is unloving but precisely because God IS loving. To take away our choice to decide for ourselves and to force us into relationship is no relationship at all. That’s called abuse. God will not do that.
As C.S. Lewis points out, on judgement day we will either say to God ‘your will be done,’ OR God will say to us ‘your will be done.’ Lewis goes onto affirm that God sends no one to these places of emptiness, but that we choose them for ourselves. The only lock on hell’s door, Lewis maintains, is on the inside.
Just as heaven involves images like streets of gold and pearly gates to reflect the wealth of love and relationship, so the images of hell are opposite – destroyed cities, burning fires of regret, and the empty wastes of self-imposed loneliness.
We are being asked to imagine being so locked up in our own pride and self-centredness that we become incapable of meaningful relationship.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, help me to move past any cartoonish images of heaven and hell I might have, and to understand more clearly the images and symbols that Scripture uses in a way that deepens my faith and enlarges my heart. Amen
FOCUS READING
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
What we often tend to forget when speaking of heaven and hell, is that the writers of Scripture were attempting to express to us what actually defies description. For example, if you had to describe a car to someone who lived thousands of years ago, how would you do it? Well, you would have to use symbols.
“It’s something like a giant metal box that glides along on four smooth, round objects,” you might well say.
You would have to use images of what they know, to convey something that they don’t know, (and even then your description would probably fall short of fully describing what a car is really like).
This is precisely what the authors of Scripture are attempting to do when it comes to heaven and hell. They make symbolic attempts to express the inexpressible. C.S. Lewis reminds us that if we want to take these symbols literally, and complain that heaven is nothing more than sitting around on clouds playing harps, then we might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, he intended for us to lay eggs.
So when some common images are used of heaven, like streets paved with gold, pearl-lined gates, or casting crowns, then we are being reminded that heaven is inexpressibly beautiful, and all that is truly worth something in this world will be found there too.
Remembering of course, that the treasures in heaven Jesus commanded us to store up have far more to do with relationships and love than with actual silver and gold. Thus, images like the streets of gold are symbolic attempts to express the incredible beauty of the joyful relationship with God and others that we will know in heaven.
As soon as we move onto some of the hell imagery in Scripture, we might begin to grapple with another very common human question, which is:
‘Why would a loving God allow hell to exist?’
Again, let’s not forget that these hell images are attempts to explain the unexplainable. The lakes of fire and places of total darkness, are actually meant to be symbols and metaphors of what life will be without God’s saving and loving presence – of being burnt up by regrets that you are no longer in a position to resolve, or of suffering in the darkness of your own pride and selfishness.
Today’s focus reading reminds us that God is not willing that any should perish, but would have all come to repentance. God will always be trying to reach us and to connect with us, BUT he will never take away our choice to say ‘no’ to him because that would defeat the framework of true love ... free choice.
So it is possible to be cut off from God, not because he is unloving but precisely because God IS loving. To take away our choice to decide for ourselves and to force us into relationship is no relationship at all. That’s called abuse. God will not do that.
As C.S. Lewis points out, on judgement day we will either say to God ‘your will be done,’ OR God will say to us ‘your will be done.’ Lewis goes onto affirm that God sends no one to these places of emptiness, but that we choose them for ourselves. The only lock on hell’s door, Lewis maintains, is on the inside.
Just as heaven involves images like streets of gold and pearly gates to reflect the wealth of love and relationship, so the images of hell are opposite – destroyed cities, burning fires of regret, and the empty wastes of self-imposed loneliness.
We are being asked to imagine being so locked up in our own pride and self-centredness that we become incapable of meaningful relationship.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, help me to move past any cartoonish images of heaven and hell I might have, and to understand more clearly the images and symbols that Scripture uses in a way that deepens my faith and enlarges my heart. Amen
FOCUS READING
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Tuesday 26th May - Rethinking Heaven & Hell – It’s not just about me and it’s not just spiritual
DAILY BYTE
At some point in time, Christian notions of salvation became both incredibly selfish and individualistic: Jesus was presented as nothing more than a passport guaranteeing entry to a better country. This kind of thinking tends to see the earth much like it was presented in the movie Wall-E - as being so trashed and messy that it would be better off for humanity to leave it all behind. So the plan is that one day Jesus will arrive to whisk Christians off somewhere better while the rest of it be damned.
In the 80’s there was a popular book called ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ which summarized this tendency – earth is gonna be smashed so get on the heaven bus while you still can. As the Christian rock pioneer once sang, we’re only visiting this planet.
Based on these assumptions, Christians have at times been pretty sour on creation. We have not cared for or stewarded creation as we are commanded to do in Genesis, but rather treated everything as disposable products ready to be used and consumed. After all, we think to ourselves, it’s all going to burn anyway!
You may be surprised to learn that this kind of thinking is actually thoroughly un-Biblical! As Romans 8 reminds us the WHOLE of creation is groaning, awaiting its final redemption.
John Ortberg writes that biblically speaking, “Redemption is always the redemption of all creation. God never creates something in order to destroy it, and if it goes wrong he intends to redeem it”. Revelation 21, which is a vision of the end of all things, provides a picture not of us disappearing in the nick of time whilst the earth is engulfed with flames, but of heaven coming down to earth! This passage of Scripture describes a new heaven and a new earth which does not mean a different heaven and earth but rather that the originals been redeemed, restored and transformed. Much like the Bible describes us as ‘new men or women’ after we have been re-born in Christ.
Yesterday, I mentioned that we would be focusing on a few different misconceptions of salvation, and this brings us to our first, which is that salvation is NOT JUST ABOUT US! God’s saving work is intended for all creation itself. This thought leads us directly into another very common misconception regarding salvation which is that it is NOT JUST A SPIRITUAL MATTER.
We imagine heaven and hell to be places where our spirits will exist but our bodies remain behind. This thinking comes not out of Scripture but out of the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato who believed that our bodies, and in fact all material things, were inherently evil and should be done away with – thus salvation could be seen entirely as a spiritual affair.
Central to the New Testament promise is that we will all experience a bodily resurrection (as Jesus did). Nothing will be wasted, all will be redeemed. Where our bodies have been touched by suffering or evil, they will be healed and restored. In other words, God plans not just to save our spirits from death but our bodies as well!
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says that our present bodies contain the seeds of the bodies we will receive once death has passed. I am not sure what exactly our bodies will look like (or whether we will be taller or thinner!) but what the Scriptures are clear on is that we will have bodies and not just spirits. Essentially, all creation (all material things) are intrinsically linked to God’s great salvation plan.
If any of this confuses you, why don’t you spend some time carefully reading through 1 Corinthians 15 (where Paul develops his teaching of bodily resurrection). Jot down and pray over any questions you may have.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, sometimes my understanding of salvation is both selfish and individualistic. Help me to see how your dream is to redeem and restore all things and that you do not view material things as inherently evil, but rather you declare them to be good. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Roman 8:19-24 NRSV
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
At some point in time, Christian notions of salvation became both incredibly selfish and individualistic: Jesus was presented as nothing more than a passport guaranteeing entry to a better country. This kind of thinking tends to see the earth much like it was presented in the movie Wall-E - as being so trashed and messy that it would be better off for humanity to leave it all behind. So the plan is that one day Jesus will arrive to whisk Christians off somewhere better while the rest of it be damned.
In the 80’s there was a popular book called ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ which summarized this tendency – earth is gonna be smashed so get on the heaven bus while you still can. As the Christian rock pioneer once sang, we’re only visiting this planet.
Based on these assumptions, Christians have at times been pretty sour on creation. We have not cared for or stewarded creation as we are commanded to do in Genesis, but rather treated everything as disposable products ready to be used and consumed. After all, we think to ourselves, it’s all going to burn anyway!
You may be surprised to learn that this kind of thinking is actually thoroughly un-Biblical! As Romans 8 reminds us the WHOLE of creation is groaning, awaiting its final redemption.
John Ortberg writes that biblically speaking, “Redemption is always the redemption of all creation. God never creates something in order to destroy it, and if it goes wrong he intends to redeem it”. Revelation 21, which is a vision of the end of all things, provides a picture not of us disappearing in the nick of time whilst the earth is engulfed with flames, but of heaven coming down to earth! This passage of Scripture describes a new heaven and a new earth which does not mean a different heaven and earth but rather that the originals been redeemed, restored and transformed. Much like the Bible describes us as ‘new men or women’ after we have been re-born in Christ.
Yesterday, I mentioned that we would be focusing on a few different misconceptions of salvation, and this brings us to our first, which is that salvation is NOT JUST ABOUT US! God’s saving work is intended for all creation itself. This thought leads us directly into another very common misconception regarding salvation which is that it is NOT JUST A SPIRITUAL MATTER.
We imagine heaven and hell to be places where our spirits will exist but our bodies remain behind. This thinking comes not out of Scripture but out of the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato who believed that our bodies, and in fact all material things, were inherently evil and should be done away with – thus salvation could be seen entirely as a spiritual affair.
Central to the New Testament promise is that we will all experience a bodily resurrection (as Jesus did). Nothing will be wasted, all will be redeemed. Where our bodies have been touched by suffering or evil, they will be healed and restored. In other words, God plans not just to save our spirits from death but our bodies as well!
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says that our present bodies contain the seeds of the bodies we will receive once death has passed. I am not sure what exactly our bodies will look like (or whether we will be taller or thinner!) but what the Scriptures are clear on is that we will have bodies and not just spirits. Essentially, all creation (all material things) are intrinsically linked to God’s great salvation plan.
If any of this confuses you, why don’t you spend some time carefully reading through 1 Corinthians 15 (where Paul develops his teaching of bodily resurrection). Jot down and pray over any questions you may have.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, sometimes my understanding of salvation is both selfish and individualistic. Help me to see how your dream is to redeem and restore all things and that you do not view material things as inherently evil, but rather you declare them to be good. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Roman 8:19-24 NRSV
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Monday 25th May - Salvation – Rethinking Heaven and Hell
DAILY BYTE
A wise old colleague of mine used to love to say, “Well, the mortality rate is still 100% you know.” The reason, I think, he used to say this so often is because we live in a culture of such denial.
We like to pretend that the more scary and horrible sides of life don’t exist, and top of all these is the probable likelihood of our own passing. We shut death away into mortuaries and hospitals; we limit our acknowledgement of it to quick in-and-out twenty minute memorial services.
All this denial and pretending that death just-isn’t-so, means that we are not a culture that knows a lot about heaven and hell. In fact, it seems that most Christian’s understanding of heaven and hell seems more rooted in bad ‘Peter and the pearly gates’ jokes, Far-side cartoons, misconceptions and myths than it is in actual Scripture.
As a result, most people just don’t seem to get excited about the concept of heaven, and really it is because we don’t properly understand it that heaven does not grip, stir and inspire us as it should. And as for that ‘other place’ – hell – well, most of us feel far more comfortable denying its existence. It just sounds ghastly, mean, rooted in superstition and plain un-pc. We worry that it knocks the concept of a loving God right off balance.
What’s more, the church hasn’t really helped with this at all. Since Medieval times, the church has tended to promote unreal, watery, pie-in-the-sky concepts of heaven on one hand, and turn-or-burn, graphic images of hell on the other. Some of you may be bearing the scars of these. You may have heard hell talked about in ways that are so manipulative and distorted that it pushes all kinds of buttons in you. I am aware of that, but can you see that this is exactly why it is so important that we do talk about these things?
This is because the mortality rate IS STILL 100%, and so questions like what happens to us when we die, and what should we do about it in the meantime are really important. I am convinced that if we study what the Bible teaches and begin to rethink some of our concepts regarding salvation (most particularly in regard to heaven and hell), then they might begin to grip and inspire us more as they should; and lead us into a deeper and more meaningful hope.
Through the rest of this week we will be dealing with some of the more common misconceptions about heaven and hell that seem prevalent in our society. We will then allow Scripture to guide us forward in our thinking.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, I give thanks that you are a God who saves us. You have always been reaching out to us and drawing us to you. Help me understand a little more what this means for me – not just for when I die, but also for right here and now. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 27:1 NRSV
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
A wise old colleague of mine used to love to say, “Well, the mortality rate is still 100% you know.” The reason, I think, he used to say this so often is because we live in a culture of such denial.
We like to pretend that the more scary and horrible sides of life don’t exist, and top of all these is the probable likelihood of our own passing. We shut death away into mortuaries and hospitals; we limit our acknowledgement of it to quick in-and-out twenty minute memorial services.
All this denial and pretending that death just-isn’t-so, means that we are not a culture that knows a lot about heaven and hell. In fact, it seems that most Christian’s understanding of heaven and hell seems more rooted in bad ‘Peter and the pearly gates’ jokes, Far-side cartoons, misconceptions and myths than it is in actual Scripture.
As a result, most people just don’t seem to get excited about the concept of heaven, and really it is because we don’t properly understand it that heaven does not grip, stir and inspire us as it should. And as for that ‘other place’ – hell – well, most of us feel far more comfortable denying its existence. It just sounds ghastly, mean, rooted in superstition and plain un-pc. We worry that it knocks the concept of a loving God right off balance.
What’s more, the church hasn’t really helped with this at all. Since Medieval times, the church has tended to promote unreal, watery, pie-in-the-sky concepts of heaven on one hand, and turn-or-burn, graphic images of hell on the other. Some of you may be bearing the scars of these. You may have heard hell talked about in ways that are so manipulative and distorted that it pushes all kinds of buttons in you. I am aware of that, but can you see that this is exactly why it is so important that we do talk about these things?
This is because the mortality rate IS STILL 100%, and so questions like what happens to us when we die, and what should we do about it in the meantime are really important. I am convinced that if we study what the Bible teaches and begin to rethink some of our concepts regarding salvation (most particularly in regard to heaven and hell), then they might begin to grip and inspire us more as they should; and lead us into a deeper and more meaningful hope.
Through the rest of this week we will be dealing with some of the more common misconceptions about heaven and hell that seem prevalent in our society. We will then allow Scripture to guide us forward in our thinking.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, I give thanks that you are a God who saves us. You have always been reaching out to us and drawing us to you. Help me understand a little more what this means for me – not just for when I die, but also for right here and now. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 27:1 NRSV
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
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