Above is a year old picture of my part of relationships. I place it here becasue it is reminder to me of how important relationships are. In my 40 years of ministry I have often been troubled with the state of Christianity in general and the Church in particular. I have wondered if there were not something missing, something we should have a better grasp on than we do. One area of weakness seems to me to be in our offer of salvation. I watched a YouTube video of the magician Penn, (of Penn and Teller) tell of a man who came to a show to give him a Bible. He claims to be an athiest but admits that if anyone truly thought there was a litteral hell, that person should do everything he could to keep anyone from going there. While hell is real and avoiding it is important, avoiding it is NOT the reason God created us. The reason is seen clearly in THE SHACK by Paul Youngs. Along about page 102 God explains to Mack that unless He, as a trinity, lived in love and relationship, He could not offer it to anyone else. Consider deeply for a moment the reality that in essence the universe has only two componets: God and NOT God or the Creator and the Created. God exists in what we call the trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A 100% understanding and explaination of this is beyond me but here is what I do understand. At the very core of the nature of God exists a relationship among the trinity. Somehow in their agreement and united counsel they decided to create man in their own image in order to include man in their relationship. Salvation is NOT just and offer to avoid hell, it is an offer to here and now enter into that eternal relationship with God. It is an offer to live knowing you are loved completely and eternally. Our problems are not that we sin but that we reject the offer of living in relationship with Them, choosing instead to live independently. The Good News is not just that we can avoid hell, but that we can litterally live in a relationship of Love with the Creator. Is that the way you always thought about it?
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That is why Matt and I do NOT like "Judgement House" and similar things around Halloween. All they do is scare people out of hell, but do not mention a relationship with a loving God.
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