Through The Wilderness: Following Jesus in the 21st Century ~ Marlena Graves

Sharpening perceptions of reality and providing spiritual guidance for those in the crux of wilderness experiences. Substantial spiritual nourishment for those who know or sense that Christ is anything but shallow. Encouraging readers to radically (which to Christ is normal) serve God and others. The author is teaching herself and others to read the world through the lens of the gospel and to become active participants in the local and worldwide body of Christ.

Showing posts with label Hell. Show all posts

Apr 11, 2011

Hell & Contentment

Merriam-Webster

blessings plural of bless·ing (Noun)

1. God's favor and protection.

2. A prayer asking for such favor and protection.

This is hell: to not see or refuse to see God right in front of us. To be ungrateful for his millions of blessings all around us. Surrounded by God but not seeing him. Surrounded by God but having contempt for him because he is the potter and we are the clay when really we live like we wish the opposite to be true.

This is hell: to think badly and rudely and harshly of God when he is full of love, joy, grace, and compassion and will freely give us all things. He is a just judge.

We must think magnificently of God. He is more magnificent and good then we can imagine.

This is hell: to have eternal treasures before us--all goodness--all beauty--all truth and to refuse it. That is what Satan did. And what we do time after time.

God help us to see and be grateful.

Oct 30, 2010

Hell

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Matthew 25:41

. . . "No one chooses in the abstract to go to hell or even to be the kind of person who belongs there. But their orientation toward self leads them to become the kind of person for whom away-from-God is the only place for which they are suited. It is a place they would, in the end, choose for themselves, rather than come to humble themselves before God and accept who he is. Whether or not God's will is infinitely flexible, the human will is not. There are limits beyond which it cannot bend back, cannot turn or repent. One should seriously inquire if to live in a world permeated with God and the knowledge of God is something they themselves truly desire. If not, they can be assured that God will excuse them from his presence. They will find their place in the 'outer darkness' of which Jesus spoke. But the fundamental fact about them will not be that they are there, but that they have become people so locked into their own self-worship and denial of God that they cannot want God.

The ultimately lost person is the person who cannot want God. Who cannot want God to be God. Multitudes of such people pass by every day, and pass into eternity. The reason they do not find God is that they do not want him or, at least, do not want him to be God. Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help me."

Dallas Willard in Renovation of the Heart pp.57-58.

Read Old Books. They Expand Our Souls.

One excellent way to see how much our culture's passing weather patterns have influenced us is to read old books. If you recieve all your information from contemporary writers, Christian or secular, you will never perceive whole concepts that people in other generations could see. (For example, earlier generations of Christians perceived a power in sexual purity that eludes us completely; we can only fall back on "don'ts"). Every Christian should always have at his bedside at least one book that is at least fifty years old--the older the better.

Frederica Matthews-Greene