Does Everyone Really Want To Go To Heaven?

What if I started this post like this…

You know what’s funny? The different ways people sneeze. You want to know what’s not funny?

HELL!

This was a common form used for blindsiding someone with the topic and characteristics of hell that I was accustomed to, and even implemented on occasion, growing up. The concept of hell was used in an attempt to scare hell out of people to rescue them from having to go there when they died. There was a popular drama performance going around among different churches in the denomination I was a part of when I was a kid. Over the course of the presentation actors would portray the lives of Christians and nonChristians before and after they died. Once someone died they would end up on a part of the stage draped in aluminum foil illuminated to the brightness of 10- 1,000,000 candle power spotlights that represented an area between heaven’s gates and hell’s flames. There were a bunch of people dressed up like the members of the Polyphonic Spree filling in as angels. One of them had a huge book in front of them which revealed who was bound for glory or doomed to the lake of fire. If they were on course for heaven Handel’s Messiah would be cranked to 10 and a tall white guy with a beard and great smile would welcome them into paradise. Meanwhile those destined for the pit would encounter satan (autotuned for evil effect) and his demons face to face while being dramatically dragged to hell.

As an impressionable youngster I was impressed to the point of goosebumps and nightmares. The emotional gauntlet the viewer had to endure caused many to wave the white flag. I gave my life to Jesus every time I went.Looking back, how could anyone not have left those dramatizations realizing that heaven is the way to go?

But does everyone really want to go to heaven?

(Thanks Loretta!)

People like the idea of heaven (though many of the ideas out there are based on incorrect descriptions or personal fantasies) and what it may entail but have a hard time with the requirements for entry.

Heaven is God’s realm. It is holy because God is there and is filled and consists of His nature–life, joy, love, peace, and light. The Bible explains that those in heaven will worship God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit continually for eternity. Why would someone who doesn’t worship God want to go there?

This is where things get offensive.

2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Jesus’ death on the cross is a billboard of sorts exposing God’s desire that no one go to hell and suffer eternally but receive His forgiveness and freedom through repentance.

But does everyone really want to go to heaven?

There are a couple views out there about the nature and quality of hell. One perspective supports the belief that because God is omnipresent hell is where His wrath is fully poured out on those who die rejecting and denying Christ. Another view upholds the idea that hell is the place completely devoid of God creating an absence of His love, peace, light, joy, and life while fostering qualities and characteristics that He doesn’t possess.

The second outlook promotes the concept that hell consists of attributes that those who don’t want God want.

In the first chapter of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans he explains that the Creator God made intimacy and relationship with Him accessible but people choose to worship what He created instead. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. People chose to worship temporary and earthly idols instead of the eternal and divine God.

(Now if I were God and people responded to me this way I would make them do a ridiculously humiliating dance in front of and eat the idols they worshiped. People would be doing the cabbage patch, electric slide, and macarena while “raising the roof” as they chewed and swallowed their dollar bills, items of clothing, cars, gadgets, and dirty magazines.) Instead of rubbing their noses in their poo the true God gives them what they want, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires,” “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts,” and, “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” According to author C.S. Lewis, “idols always break the hearts of their worshipers.” Our replacements for God have given us what we wanted…hell.

God sends no one to hell. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the full expression of God’s love for people destined for hell to save them from hell. God is the one who actually wants everyone to go to heaven. We are the ones who would rather choose our own way, our own agenda, and our own methods of salvation. And God will let us.

God doesn’t send anyone into eternal separation from Him but He allows us to send ourselves there. Love doesn’t force but love sacrifices. And thats just what God did to rescue us from our selfish determination.

God sent His Son to suffer hell on a cross to save us from sending ourselves to there.

Eternity Starts Now

Americans have a slight obsession with eternity and we don’t even know it.

Think about the way we describe certain things. After taking a bite of a piece of The Cheesecake Factory’s Brownie Sundae Cheesecake someone will say, “Wow! That’s heavenly.”

(Heaven on a plate?)

In the midst of a relaxing visit to the spa someone will sigh, “I’m in heaven.” And it’s unavoidable going to an exclusive beach resort without someone portraying it as, “a glimpse of heaven.”

But it’s not only in the way we describe our experiences eternity gets jumbled around with romance and love all the time. Boyfriends promise to love their girlfriends forever (and then breakup with them for someone more heavenly, right?). Around Valentines day you’ll find a smattering of eternal promises on bears, hearts, and boxes of candy. My son has a sign above his closet in his room that expresses our eternal feelings toward him, Love you to the moon and back, to infinity and beyond, forever and always. As I discussed a couple blogs ago it’s not only heaven that gets the only eternal press. Hell gets its fair share of verbal recognition as well with descriptive phrases like, “Hell(z) yeah (for all those who enjoy Nascar or Kid Rock) yeah,” “Easy as hell,” and “Hard as hell.”

Why do we use eternity to describe so many temporary things?

Is it a figment of our imagination?

Is it a Freudian slip?

Is it a deep seated longing taking any opportunity it can get?

In the Hebrew Testament, the writer of the book of Ecclesiates makes a small comment with huge implications (it’s just after the part written by The Byrds).He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. God has set eternity on everyone’s heart, but have a difficult time making sense of this infinite factor in our finite being.

But we do our darndest when we take a bite of cheesecake or pick out a Valentine’s Day card.

Everyone has an eternal awareness. Everyone also has an eternal longing. We don’t want the breath-taking sunset to ever end. We want to freeze this or that moment in time (Zack Morris style). We don’t want the last day of summer break or a vacation to come to a close. We want the kiss goodnight to last forever. And if you’ve got the legs and stamina Chris Brown wants to spend his life on the dance floor forevaevaevaeva.

(A maven of all things eternal?)

A few thousand years before Chris Brown made the eternal hit list Jesus was talking about eternity telling people that He was from heaven, He would return to heaven, and that He was bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. Even before Jesus came to earth people were talking about Jesus’ eternal nature; King David (1,000 years before Jesus) revealed that even though the Messiah (Jesus) would come after him He always existed before him (Psalm 110:1). And they were saying very similar things about Jesus’ eternality after He left earth. The Apostle Paul revealed that, He is before all things, in the letter he wrote to a church in Colossae (around 30 years after Jesus’ ascension). Jesus was not the only one to proclaim His eternal nature, it both preceded and proceeded Him.

Many have the misunderstanding that eternity begins when we die. Speaker Clayton King claims that our eternity begins when we are born. If we are going to continue on forever than our eternal life begins when our life begins. It doesn’t start when this life stops.

So the question isn’t if we will live forever after we die but how and where will we live once we die. During Jesus’ final prayer He prayed, Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. This segment of Jesus’ prayer exposes the reality that our post-death eternity is determined by satisfying our pre-death eternal longing.

Our hearts long for eternity now.

Jesus is eternal.

Is Jesus what our hearts truly desire in it’s failed attempts to find Him in food, vacations, and relationships?

When Jesus died on the cross He forgave us for trying to satisfy our eternal longing with everything but Him. And His resurrection frees us to find our fulfillment in the One who has been forever. As Jesus prayed, it’s when we know and believe that He is God that our eternal ache is relieved on earth and fulfilled completely with Him in heaven.

Jesus became finite so we could live with Him infinitely.

 

 

When Hell Comes To Town

In one of Jesus’ most well known speeches, The Sermon on the Mount, He essentially reveals that lust is a form of adultery and that adultery brings hell to earth. This is how He said it, You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

In the original language the word used for hell is Gehenna. In Jesus’ day Gehenna was a literal place outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem where people would discard their trash, fires would burn constantly, and wild dogs would roam, moan, and gnash their teeth with other strays. A couple hundred years prior to Jesus’ life the area of Gehenna was known as the Valley of Ben Hinnom. During Israel’s rebellious years under the rule and leadership of wicked kings the people would offer child sacrifices to the different gods they worshiped. When Jesus spoke of Gehenna He used it to describe a literal place as well as a spiritual reality and eternal location.

The trash dump and the ancient alters were aweful places and represented terrible situations. Something like a small version of hell on earth. If Jesus came to earth 60 years ago or so and preached the Sermon on the Mount He may have used Auschwitz in place of Gehenna. If He spoke His famous words in the 90′s He may have used Rwanda instead. These places all experienced hell and whenever they’re brought up it’s nearly impossible to separate the horror from the location.

Within the rich content Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught His followers to pray, Father, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
This is a prayer for heaven to come to earth. This is a prayer for the rule and reign of God to immerse our world in grace and peace, forgiveness and freedom. This is a combat prayer against the spread of hell on earth. The brilliant N.T. Wright explains it this way, As Christians, we look for the marriage of heaven and earth, not their separation; and in that light we must look with Christian realism at the possibility of a different, and disastrous, marriage, which has become all too real a possibility in our own day: a marriage of hell and earth. That is what Jesus warned about in His own day. We can do no less in our own day. This is why Jesus teaches that simple lust is just as dangerous as full blown adultery, they both leak hell into the suburbs, cities, and countries of our planet.

It’s not lust alone that brings the quality and character of hell to earth. Our sin – our dispair, pride, ungratefulness, greed, anxiety, revenge, apathy, judgmentalism, hate, and fear – prove that hell exists because they make it a reality on earth. Jesus said we’re in danger of the fires of Gehenna when we entertain and allow these things to remain active in our lives. The world is in danger of becoming a smoldering “trash dump” if we do not allow heaven in to consumer our lives and smother hell in our hearts.

The death and resurrection of Christ were the climax of heaven intersecting with earth. The cross forgives us for turning earth into hell and the resurrection frees us from living like hell so we can take part in the movement and mission of Jesus bringing heaven to earth.

Jesus came to earth to extinguish hell with heaven.

Hard as Heaven

It’s common to hear the phrases, “Hard as hell,” and, “Easy as hell,” used in a variety of social settings and personal interactions. The phrases are used to describe different experiences. One student may describe an exam as, “Easy as hell,” while another student may describe the same exam as, “Hard as hell,” based on how difficult the test was for either student. These expressions are used to describe different tasks, challenges, and situations. A breakup might be, “Hard as hell,” for one person in the relationship but, “Easy as hell,” for the other.

I over analyze popular idioms and catchphrases. I’m baffled about the meaning of sayings like, “Chewing the fat,” or, “She didn’t know a hill of beans,” or, “Close but no cigar.” When people make a remark like these in the midst of their communication I frequently get lost trying to figure out what in the world they mean and how they originated.

I’ve done the same with, “Hard as hell,” and, “Easy as hell.”

Upon closer examination these phrases can used without the descriptive language, “as hell.” A boss could describe a moment of confrontation with an employee as “easy” while the employee may describe it as “hard.” If you contemplate it for less than a minute “hell” is used for emphasis. But how did hell warrant the quantifiers: hard and easy?

In my opinion the maxim, “Easy as hell,” is an accurate phrase. Hell is easy, natural, automatic. St. Paul describes it this way, There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Living like hell is easy as hell. According to Paul, it’s what we all do innately.

When someone uses the expression, “Hard as hell,” their adjective is off. A quick glance at the daily paper or evening news paints a pretty horrific picture of humanity. Killings. Abuse. Theft. Deceit. Betrayal. (The news exists to give movie producers and directors ideas.) Hell is believed to consist of fire, flesh eating maggots, and a mix of Celine Dion’s and Limp Bizkit’s greatest hits played on nonstop repeat. These things are pretty miserable but what word accurately defines the cruelty, injustice, and evil that permeates the globe? Are these things just an expression of that reality?

It doesn’t take much work to conjure up hell but it is nearly impossible to simulate heaven. Just as fire and pitchforks don’t do hell justice, naked babies, harps, and marshmallows misrepresent heaven. I believe our best depictions and projections of heaven pale in comparison to the actual reality of heaven, but it is undeniable that there will be a stark contrast between the qualities of heaven and hell.

To live out the qualities of hell is easy. Living out the qualities of heaven is, well, hard as heaven. Because we have a particular disposition for living it makes turning the tables or righting our wrongs a near impossible tasks. When things are natural it makes doing the unnatural, unnatural. Jesus said, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again…no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”

Physical rebirth is impossible. Spiritual rebirth takes water and the Spirit. It takes removing, washing away hell, and replacing it, filling it, with heaven.

Spiritual rebirth is unattainable on our own. Spiritual rebirth is as hard as heaven. Unless heaven does the work for us.

Heaven is as it is because of who dwells there. Heaven doesn’t make God holy. God makes heaven holy. God came to earth, in the person of Jesus, to make our lives holy not just so we could go to heaven when we die, but so we can live like it while we’re alive.

On the cross Jesus experienced hell so we could live like heaven and experience it forever.