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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Removing the Things That Offend, continued
For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. (Jude 1:4,5 NIV)
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:1-4 NIV)
The passages above reveal that the Christian churches were the same then as they are now. Jude tells us the Lord is coming with many thousands of His saints to deal with the sinners in the churches. They will be cast into the fire, as Matthew says.
Are We Seeking Paradise or Christ?
One reason Evangelical teaching is so far off course is that we are preaching the Christian salvation as a way of escaping Hell and going to Paradise (Heaven).
To be sure, there is a literal Hell. The rich man was not enjoying his stay there the last we heard.
There is a literal Paradise. Paul was caught up to Paradise in the third heaven. While we do not know much about Paradise we can be sure it far exceeds in joy and wonder any concept we have at the present time.
But the Gospel of the Kingdom is not about escaping Hell and going to Heaven. The Gospel is about moving people from the person and behaviors of Satan to the Person and behaviors of God.
We have made going to Paradise the goal of salvation. Our goal should be going to Christ, to the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God and Paradise are not at all the same thing. Paradise is a place that once was on earth and now is in the Presence of God in the spirit realm, apparently.
The Kingdom of God is Christ conceived and then formed in us.
The parable of the sower tells us we can reap Christ thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. But none of this has anything to do with going to Heaven.
Whether we reap Christ thirtyfold or a hundredfold, Paradise will not be changed. Paradise is perfect. There is no pain or trouble there.
What, then, is the advantage of reaping Christ a hundredfold if it is not going to bring us to a better Paradise?
Right here the reader's heart is examined. Are you going to make the effort to reap Christ a hundredfold, at the cost of your whole life on earth, even though it will not bring you to a better Paradise?
Be honest with yourself. Do you want to go to a fairy land in the sky or do you want God?
No person is going to cleave to the Lord in this life, laying down all else, unless he or she has a very strong motive. Why should we seek God to this extent if we will go to Paradise in any case?
Ask yourself that question. Then you will find out if you really love God and want to be part of Him or whether you wish to escape the pain of Hell and go to a fun place in the spirit realm.
To be continued.