Our Response to the Good News of Christ Seals our Eternal Destiny

When we hear the good news of Jesus Christ, God gives us a choice, choose life. The good news of Christ challenges us; do we continue in sin and death or choose blessing and life? (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

Good is to know and do the will of the Father, evil is to reject the way and voice of God. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14). This is realised in our lifetimes, our deaths and our resurrection. We choose life and know blessing or choose death and perish.

In this life, death is our experience. We know suffering and pain. We know tears. God in his mercy has set before us life and death in Christ. In the good news of Jesus and in the order of creation, even our very being, life is set before us.  Life is the revelation of God; it is in our mouths and in our hearts. Love is experienced in what we feel, speak and do.

In Christ there is a deepening peace, an inner land to explore. In our sins this inner land is a place of death. In this death our inner land is despair and loneliness and we perish. We perish separated from each other and God. We are alive but we are dying. In Christ we experience the consequences of death but are reborn into a new reality.

God has set before us himself, in creation, in his people Israel, and now in the church. He has revealed the way through the cross and the new life of the Spirit. He calls us to worship him in Spirit and Truth, not on a mountain, not in some distant land, not with our head in the clouds but in the normalcy of our everyday lives. He is in our hearts and our minds. In his mercy we encounter him in life, recognising only death in the things of the world. Will we worship God or the world?

And it will ever be so. At the end of time many will perish, some will be blessed. The sovereign LORD, each moment of each day sets before us a path and we choose how we walk it. God calls each of us to walk holy as he is holy. We are not worthy in our walk but because Jesus is worthy, we are made worthy. The life and death of Christ deal with our sin and as we turn to Jesus we are purified.

At the end of time, all will be revealed for what it is. God will consume all in his holy fire. What remains will be precious. The cross stands eternal, high and lifted up. It consumes all sin, eternally, that is its power.

All that rejects God is burned up (Deuteronomy 4:24). The fire purifies (Matthew 3:11-12). To suffer loss in the fire will hurt (1 Corinthians 3:10-15) but what remains is precious. To suffer eternal loss is a fearful thing; to be found with no precious foundation is eternal death. The consequence of turning from the living God is eternal fire. This is hell.

We have life in Christ; we have come through the fire. The cross has brought us into eternal life. Jesus speaks of the realities of the fires of hell and the reality of eternal life which is freely given in Christ. It is anathema that anyone is created for hell, and I believe that nowhere is it taught in scripture. God is fully justified in condemning us all to eternal separation but love is perfected in saving us. Embrace Christ and receive life.