Hello,
How hot is hell? Apparently
it is hotter than it has been around here.
There is a church that I pass every day on my way home from 1st
Lutheran that forewarns me of the hellish heat at which the devil keeps the thermostat
set. “YOU THINK IT IS HOT HERE!”,
says the sign which is strategically set alongside a four lane highway.
It has been hot here, really hot, as hot as h….. no …I guess not. Hell, the sign says is hotter. I’ve not run into anyone who is
enjoying the hot spell we are having. Thankfully, most people around here have air
conditioning in which to retreat, but those who are without are left to blow
hot air over them to camouflage the heat.
It doesn’t work very well.
Hot is hot….and who likes hot?
The first time I drove by
that church sign, it caught me as a bit humorous. However, with each passing trip my humor has dissipated into
dismay. Dismay because as a
Christian it bothers me that the message from that sign that so many people
will get about the faith that I hold is a message of fear. Scaring people into heaven. Is that what the Christian faith is
really all about. I don’t think
so.
The God that I have come to know in Jesus Christ, the one who embodies
God, the one who gives us sight to see the one we cannot see, the one who helps
us know the one who is beyond human knowledge…is not a God who gets friends by
scaring them away from someone else.
Instead the God that I have come to know in Jesus Christ is a God who
gets his friends by proving to be the one who is most worthy to be called a
friend….
·
one who looks upon me (and you) and says to
anyone and anything that would want to bully us around, “This is my friend, and
you’ll have to get through me to get to him.”
·
one who enjoys my company so much that he
doesn’t tire of having me around, as a matter of fact he wants me to be with
him forever.
·
one whose interest in me is so deep that he
delights in hearing from me about the most trivial things in life and the most
complex.
·
one who wont turn his back on me when I have
just ruined my life, but he will jump into the deepest hole that I could dig
for myself and lift me out.
·
one who would die ….no has died for me.
It may be hot in hell, but that is not why I am a Christian. I am a Christian because of who Jesus
is: a friend like none other. And
if Jesus is, as the Bible says, “what we see in a mirror dimly”, I can hardly
wait to find out the magnificence of his friendship when we see face to face.
If I was going to post a sign along a busy four lane highway, this is
the sign I would post, “LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO JESUS: FRIEND FOR LIFE, FRIEND
THROUGH DEATH”. It may not be very
catchy or clever…..but it is the God that I have come to know, and the God I
would like people to know, too.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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