Lagnape

Nothing like spending 59 hrs inside 2 rooms without the warmth of the sun on your face or the wind in your hair. But it was a necessary evil that brought about miraculous results in the form of little LJ...so who am I to complain? After all, it did allow me to catch up on tons of useless tv watching, especially in regards to the type of programming that I normally can't turn away from fast enough.


Even though I was able to feast on hrs on top of hrs of TBN broadcasting, the most profound thing I saw was from the history channel. They had this show called Hell: The Devil's Domain & I was fascinated to say the least. They covered all aspects of hell from a historical standpoint & looked at it from many different denominational & theological perspectives that all could identify w/today. All theology had different variances on the specifics, but the one thing that all had in common was that hell, at it's very primal core is a place where the presence of God is not.


You may now be saying oh yeah Lee, big fat hairy deal dude, tell me something that I didn't know.


Well, ok...give me a sec & I'll try to bring this somewhere...


I recently had this on-going discussion w/a friend about the motivating factors driving obedience. My contention is that although fear may be the beginning of obedience that's ultimately founded in faith, that our intent should not be to stay there. I would that my kids obey me initially out of fear of reaping unwanted consequences, but that 1 day they would mature in relationship w/me & obey out of love. After all, if fear of consequence were the pinnacle in a driving of motivation, the death penalty would be the ultimate deterrent...but, it ain't.


So, to have a healthy view of the gospel & of the glory of the kingdom that we are saved to, we need a balanced, healthy view of it all. To say that we're saved from hell, damnation, fire, brimstone, whatever isn't broad enough a picture. Sure all of these things suck to say the least, but I would still contend that they are not enough, just as I would say our vision of heaven sitting on a cloud plucking a harp isn't enough.


If hell at it's very core is the lack of the presence of God it is the very antithesis of heaven.


Again you may be saying duh! But think about it...


If you're like me you've heard/seen plenty of folks that like to play up fear of the fire & bring it on w/the brimstone & all the fixin's, but to do this isn't enough. Because fear of this perhaps isn't enough. Fear of consequence hasn't been/won't ever be enough. To boil the gospel down to this is narrow-minded at best & criminal at worst.


To let Love rule IS to let fear have it's say. Fear of the right thing. The lack of God & His presence...

All else is lagnape...