I have been struggling, in the best kind of faith-breaking-and-faith-building way, with how we, as Christians, boil the incomparable beauty of the gospel message down to "If we're wrong, we risk nothing, but if you're wrong, you risk eternity." Our intentions are good. We want to see people experience life transformation - we have "tasted and seen" His beautiful, redemptive plan in our own lives, and it's so, so good. We are desperate for people to know the God we know and to see with clarity, for the very first time, who He is. And so we fly through our mental file of compelling arguments for Jesus and we almost invariably land on this one: "What if hell is real, and you're risking your entire eternity!?"
"Whew," we think, "that oughta do it."
It's a tactic for sure. It speaks to our survival instincts. We humans are big on self-preservation, but...what if we aren't called to mere survival? What if we're called to more? Called to freedom? Called to thrive?
When we ignore the freedom in favor of the survival, we're elevating fear above faith, and we are boldly proclaiming the bad news: "Intense fear of hell is why we love Jesus!" We are idolizing the gift of salvation, and not its Giver. We're idolizing the avoidance of hell and not the hope of an eternity spent with our Maker. It's an important nuance. In our faith, where we should be overwhelmed by the incomprehensibility of a God who actually loves us and who actually wants us to know Him, we end up reducing Him to what He can do for us at the expense of learning who He is.
We are called to make disciples of all nations, but we forget that it's God who justifies...not us.
Everyone on a faith journey has to start somewhere, but I think we miss the entirety of God's intention when we use Him as a "get out of hell free" card. The wonder of "who am I that you are mindful of me?" is too captivating for us to miss it, and the freedom found in receiving the gift of this relationship is to great to ignore it.
Comments
Post a Comment