Christians: Why do you say that anyone who isn’t Christian or doesn’t believe in Jesus is going to hell? You also say "love thy neighbor" and "be civil" or something along those lines. Saying anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus is going to hell is not loving and not civil. Explain yourselves!
My Reply:
Here's the thing:
God loves you...He really does. In fact, God loves you so much that He died (as Jesus) for you, and He died for you not to lay a guilt trip on you, but so that you could be with Him for all eternity. All you have to do is accept God now (during your lifetime) through Jesus Christ, and you will spend eternity with Him. This place where God is, is Heaven.
God REALLY wants you to join Him there, and He's opened the door. But if you don't walk through the door, which is Jesus (John 14:6), then you obviously won't go join Him there. And since there are only 2 places to go when you die, you'll go to the other place (Hell).
You say it's not loving? God doesn't force you to love Him back. He gives you the choice to believe in Him, have faith in Him, accept Him, get to know Him, love Him...He says that if you truly seek Him, you'll find Him. But if you choose not to seek God, then He won't force you...that's love. If God forced you, then that wouldn't be love.
God gave you the choice...ball's in your court. Will you choose God who's in Heaven, or not God, which leads to the other place (Hell). But either way, it's your choice, and that's love, and it's also fair.
5 comments:
That's a very strange kind of love if you think about it, isn't it Pastor Andy?
Did you choose to love your spouse? Your children? Your parents and siblings? Did any of them choose to love you, I wonder? Since when was love and choice a matched pair?
Would you consider this kind of familial love a legitimate choice if you either loved them OR had to spend all of eternity suffering the torments of hell? Who in their right mind - given that choice - would choose hell?
This is a very conditional and highly immature and jealous kind of love that is all or nothing, where the nothing also comes with enormous punishment. Love me or else...
Now imagine a parent saying to you, "I grant you the right to either love me unconditionally or not at all, but... if you don't make that choice to love me, I'll break your neck and torture you each day, every night, without letup, without taking any breaks at all, repeatedly making you suffer as much as I am capable, while you live out the rest of your life in a wheelchair utterly dependent on me for your every need." Is this the kind of love you think is worth worshiping? Can such a god as this even be worth respecting?
I find this choice you speak of as morally repugnant.
Hey tildeb,
Actually, yes, I did choose to fall in love with my spouse. And I don't think it's inappropriate to ask the one who claims to love you to give you all or nothing. Would you allow your spouse to date others? Of course not. And if you truly love your spouse, then you'll want to be with him/her forever, right? In the same way, God doesn't ask for anything less than everything from us, for anything less wouldn't be true love, would it?
It is one of those things that non-believers seem to dwell on. The “believe my way or else” lie.
That is why there will be a Judgment Day. People will say, “Why should I go to the lake of fire?” They may ask, “Don’t my good deeds outweigh my bad?”
Then... their entire life is replayed. And they will have to just grab their asbestos surf board and... well, you get the idea.
God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives. Satan hates us and has a horrible plan for our lives.
I’m choosing God’s plan.
Hell is not torture, but just punishment for sinful people who have not just rejected God, but his righteousness. It is justice that is being served. We have rebelled against God and his ways and we receive the just fruits of that. Yet, in his love for us, God has set aside his divine right (as a morally perfect being) to justice in favor of offering a pardon to those who accept it.
Now I don't know about a parent snapping his child's neck for not loving him unconditionally. But I know that anyone who is in prison for their crimes wants a pardon for them, even when they know they are guilty. Through Christ, God offers just such a pardon. If one turns one's back on that gift, is it God being petty to carry out his justice or is it the person being a fool for choosing his deserved punishment over the offered (and undeserved) pardon?
Michael:
Good prison analogy! A little graphic in the second paragraph, but yes, just as prisoners are judged/bound by their crimes, we're bound by our sin/sins. But praise the Lord for His pardon! I once heard a PSA for 1-888-Need-Him with a similar analogy. Isn't it sad that though the pardon is free, so many reject it?
I have to disagree about the part about hell not being torture though.
For instance, Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. Plus, Jesus has described the fires as 100s times hotter than any known fire on earth. He also often refers hell to being a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Peter also talks some about it by saying that it wasn't originally made for humans, but for Satan and his rebellious angels (demons). And when you look at the Lord's condemnation towards certain people in the Old Testament, and the fact that Jesus called certain people in the New Testament children of Satan, I think we can say that Hell won't be a place where people will be twiddling their thumbs saying, "oops".
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate your thoughts and input :)
Post a Comment