things i’m learning about hell

i’m learning a lot about hell. sometimes i need to write out my sermon so i have a manuscript in case i forget all my words in front of the congregation…but sometimes i need to blog out my thoughts in a way that just makes sense in my head so i can see if i can even wrap my head around what i think. so here are some thoughts:

1. some people dont think hell is a real place. some people think its a very real place. when i read the words of Jesus i have to think that its a really real place. if it was a place you could eventually escape to go be in heaven, why would it be that big of deal? why would Jesus have made such intense warnings about it…and not just once, but several times. also: if you aren’t sure if its real but dont know what you think, wouldnt you rather err on the side of leaning more towards believing its a real place? is that something you want to be wrong about?

2. God doesnt make sense to me because i’m not Him. all throughout the bible, there are passages and stories and things God does, says, and commands that seem weird when i have been taught and can read for myself that He is gracious, loving, forgiving, and accepting. Why does God choose to really hound some people with His truth and let others just fumble around not really getting it. Why would God command His people to annihilate another group of people? Why do seemingly innocent people get slaughtered and stoned in the old testament? So much confusion. And then on another completely different note, where does God even come from in the first place?!? If God made everything, who made God? And then i read passages like Job 38, where God basically says “I am God and you are not and my ways sometimes won’t make any sense and that’s just the way it is.”

am i okay with that?
i’m not sure. but then i think about the fact that my being okay or accepting of the ways of God doesn’t make them any less true. just because i don’t want to be okay with something God does or will do doesn’t change the reality that God has created and continues to  be the King of.

3. i am learning more and more that God doesn’t send people to hell. i think that we choose to be there or be in heaven. i heard it said recently in a sermon (and i will steal this…with credit of course…) that when we die, God will give us what we really desired on earth. If we desired to be with God and live in community with Him and His people on this earth, then that’s what we’ll be given when we die. And we have desired to have no part in what God and His community were doing, then we can have that too…just that one is in Hell.

4. Jesus is talking to some folk in matthew 13:47 and following, He is telling people what it will be like at “the end of the age” and He’s saying that some are going to be tossed out, basically to hell. then He does this thing where he asks them if they understand what He’s saying and they all reply “yes.” But I feel like its not to hard to understand…the hard part is accepting it for how things really will be. if we really understand what Jesus is saying, would we really be living like we do a lot of the time? ay ay ay…

5. everyday is a winding road.

Advertisement