You re Beautiful Read the First Word Again
Do whatever of these sound familiar?
- Every Dominicus the preacher shouted from the pulpit that you're a terrible sinner. God is angry at you. Because of God's wrath, you're going to burn in hell for all eternity.
- Your parents drilled information technology into you lot that y'all're just no good. And they're probably right. You just tin't feel good about anything you exercise.
- You've done terrible things . . . horrible things. What you've done is and so bad that y'all deserve to be in hell. There is no hope for you. You're a goner.
- No matter how hard you effort, you only can't be good. You know what you should do, but you just keep on doing the things you shouldn't exercise.
If any of these are much likewise familiar for you, I'll be directly: There are no easy answers. Besides, you've probably tried the like shooting fish in a barrel answers already, and learned the hard way that they don't work.
I'thou likewise non going to tell y'all that all you have to practice is believe in Jesus. Assertive in Jesus is groovy. I highly recommend it! Being born again is wonderful! Simply for Christians, believing in Jesus is merely the start. Then come the many years of growing from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity.
The fact is, if any of the things on this list describe your feel, and so no matter how you slice it, you've got some hard piece of work to do. And it may have years to fully recover, even with God'south assist.
What I tin can offer you is new light and a new understanding of your situation. Nothing I say will snap you right out of information technology and instantly make your life a bed of roses. Simply information technology volition give you hope that there is a path out. And it might help you take your adjacent steps on that path toward the life of heaven God has in mind for you.
No affair what that preacher or your parents or anyone else has said, God created you for heaven, not for hell. And there is no reason on earth that you can't find your way to sky . . . no matter what your history.
So permit's straighten a few things out.
Is a wrathful God angry at you lot?
The short answer is: No.
Huh?!?
And so what nigh all those Bible passages the preacher quoted most God's wrath and fury?
Doesn't the Bible say, "God judgeth the righteous, and God is aroused with the wicked every day" (Psalm seven:11, Rex James Version)?
Well, there'southward a funny story near that verse . . .
Kickoff, the give-and-take for "the wicked" came from an ancient Aramaic (or "Chaldee") version. Information technology is not in the original Hebrew text, nor is information technology in the other ancient translations. Fifty-fifty in the King James Version, the words "with the wicked" are in italics, meaning they are non in the original. Then it should read, "God judges the righteous, and God is aroused every solar day."
But expect, in that location's more!
Y'all run into, the Hebrew discussion for "God" in the 2nd half of the verse could besides hateful "not," depending on how the Hebrew is interpreted. And that's exactly what most of ancient translations, including the well-known Septuagint Greek translation, take in that poesy. The first half of the verse is too a little off in some of the older English translations.
What does this all mean?
The poetry about certainly should read, "God is a righteous judge, and is non aroused all day." (Compare Young's Literal Translation for this poetry.)
Motion picture a judge taking hundreds of cases, ane subsequently another, pronouncing just judgments all mean solar day without ever getting angry, even at the worst evildoers. That's the picture the Psalmist is painting. And information technology's merely the contrary of what that old fire and brimstone preacher said!
Now, don't get me incorrect. At that place are lots of other verses in the Bible that talk about God's acrimony and wrath. Simply as I pointed out in the article, "If God is Love, Why all the Pain and Suffering?" that's simply how God's dear looks to us when we're bent on an evil and destructive path that'southward opposed to God's dearest.
God's honey is like the warmth of the sun. But what if you're a snowman? What if you desire to be common cold and unloving? If you're a snowman, God's love looks wrathful and subversive. It'south a horrible, destructive heat that melts and destroys you.
When the Bible talks about God'southward wrath, it's talking about the issue God's love has on everything that's evil and false in us and in our earth. It's just when we identify with the evil and cling to it equally our own that we feel God's love as anger and wrath. And the Bible oftentimes speaks to us according to the mode things seem to usa, fifty-fifty if the reality is different from God'south perspective.
Did you know that the Bible talks about God's love far more often than it talks about God'south wrath? Here is a cute passage assuring us that God feels only love toward united states, whether we are evil or good:
You accept heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to y'all, Dearest your enemies and pray for those who persecute you lot, so that you lot may be children of your Father in sky; for he makes his dominicus rise on the evil and on the skillful, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew five:43–45)
And the famous verses from the Gospel of John:
For God then loved the earth that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish only may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, just in order that the globe might be saved through him. (John 3:16–17)
Observe that it doesn't say God was and then aroused with the world, just God and then loved the globe.
So hither'south the beginning ray of new low-cal, and the most important new data about your situation: No matter what you may have been told, God is not angry at y'all. Information technology's just the opposite. No matter what you have done, and no matter how horrible or worthless a person y'all recall y'all are, God loves y'all.
God sends you the dominicus of divine love, and the rain of divine truth, whether you are evil or proficient, and whether you are righteous or unrighteous.
There is nothing you tin do to make God end loving yous. As the Psalm says:
O Lord, y'all take examined me, and you know me. . . .
If I go up to sky, y'all are at that place.
If I brand my bed in hell, you are there.
(Psalm 139:1, eight)
Are you condemned because of what your parents did?
Our parents were responsible for bringing us into this world. They are supposed to love us, treat us, teach united states of america right from wrong, and guide us toward a good for you and responsible adulthood. And some of the states were fortunate enough to have parents who did a fine chore.
Unfortunately, some of the states were born of parents who fell far short of the marking. Maybe they but weren't ready to have children. Maybe they were too focused on coin or ability or pleasure to really care most their children. Perhaps they were just plain evil and destructive types who used and abused their children at will. Bad parents can crusade not bad damage to their children.
If you were one of those unfortunate children, does this mean your life is ruined from the starting time, and you might as well just throw in the towel?
In ancient times, it was mutual for whole families to be condemned and executed for the offenses of the head of the household. For case, when three men named Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against God's commandments to the aboriginal Hebrews about the priesthood, not only they, merely their wives and children died as a result of their disobedience. Yous can read the story in Numbers 16.
However, in course of time, God pronounced an cease to the practice of children existence judged guilty for the crimes of their parents. This pronouncement comes in Ezekiel xviii—one of the well-nigh beautiful chapters in the Hebrew Bible. Hither's how the chapter begins:
The word of the Lord came to me: What exercise you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the state of State of israel, "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children'southward teeth are set on border"? As I alive, says the Lord God, this maxim shall no more be used past you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent equally well every bit the life of the child is mine: information technology is but the person who sins that shall die. (Ezekiel xviii:i–four)
The chapter and so goes on to explain in item that if a male parent is good, just his son evil, then but the son shall be held guilty; and if that son has a son who sees how his father lived, and resolves not to live that style, but to live a skillful life instead, and then but the male parent, non the son, shall exist held guilty.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't information technology?
To us today, yes. Our justice system is based on private innocence and guilt. To the ancient Israelites, though, this seemed quite unjust. They idea it was right and proper that if a man sins, his whole family should be punished!
God was quite articulate, though, that this was not to exist our exercise anymore:
When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The person who sins shall die. A child shall non suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall exist his own. (Ezekiel 18:nineteen–twenty)
However, when it comes to our spiritual and emotional life, sometimes we oasis't gotten the bulletin. We think that because our parents were evil, and neglected or mistreated united states, that ways nosotros, too, are doomed, and headed toward hell.
It's not true.
Yeah, we may have a long, hard road undoing the damage that our parents did to us. It might have much prayer, counseling, and much difficult and painful introspection and rearranging of our emotional and social life.
Simply God does not hold us responsible for the errors and sins of our parents. And neither should we. If our parents drilled into united states of america that we're but no skillful, they were lying to u.s.. And if they used and abused us, they were perpetrating evil on united states.
That lying and that evil was theirs, not ours. And though it did have a profound effect on united states of america, there is a pathway out of the damage our parents did to the states. It is the path of recognizing that what our parents did to us had zilch to exercise with united states of america. It was their own immaturity, neglect, and evil, non ours, that damaged us. As we recognize that what they said was not truthful, and what they did was but plain wrong, we can gradually recognize that nosotros ourselves are not what they said nosotros were, nor did we deserve what they did to us.
If you were neglected or abused verbally or physically by your parents, it is not going to be an easy path out of what they did to you. But there is a path. And information technology starts with recognizing that you lot are not condemned for the sins of your parents. God created you for a reason. God loves y'all, and has prepared a place for y'all in heaven (see John xiv:1–3, i Corinthians 2:9).
You have the rest of your life to leave behind the lies and the wrongs that were inflicted on you when you were immature. You have the rest of your life to walk, even if painfully sometimes, the path toward the life of sky that God has prepared for you.
Have you committed terrible sins?
What if it wasn't your parents who did a number on y'all? What if yous yourself take done terrible, horrible things? What if you lot don't deserve to go to heaven because of what yous've done?
If that'south the state of mind yous're in, and so Ezekiel xviii has a message for you likewise:
Just if the wicked plow away from all their sins that they accept committed and proceed all my statutes and exercise what is lawful and right, they shall surely alive; they shall not die. None of the transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered confronting them; for the righteousness that they take washed they shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should plow from their means and live? (Ezekiel 18:21–23, accent added)
Based on his experience in the spiritual world, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) tells us that this is precisely how it works later we die. In Heaven and Hell #509, he writes:
No one suffers any penalisation for evil things done in the world, just for electric current evil deeds. . . . Good spirits are never punished, though, even though they have washed bad things in the earth. This is because their evils do not come dorsum.
Swedenborg is simply affirming what God tells united states of america in Ezekiel xviii: We are not held responsible for things we accept done in the past. Merely for things we keep doing in the present. If nosotros have done something terrible in the by, only have repented of it, accept reformed our character, and no longer do things like that, then none of the transgressions we have committed will be remembered confronting united states.
If y'all have done something terrible, there is no way to undo it. Yous and those you injure will nevertheless have to live with the repercussions of your actions. But one of those repercussions is not that you must go to hell for it.
Of course, if there is any way y'all tin can make amends for what you lot have done, y'all should certainly do so. Even so, when your time on this globe comes to an terminate, y'all will find your identify in sky or in hell depending on the person you lot have become in the present, and the way yous are living now, not based on whatsoever wrongs y'all have done in the past.
As the old maxim goes, "Every saint has a past, and every sinner a future."
So please don't worry about the terrible things yous have done in the by. God has already forgiven you for them. God has no pleasure in your eternal decease. No matter what you've done, God wants y'all to turn from your quondam ways and alive! Now it'south time to build a new life for yourself, then that you won't do things similar that anymore. For more on how to do this, meet the article, "What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Over again?"
What if you keep doing things you shouldn't?
It sounds similar you're in the same boat as the apostle Paul when he wrote:
I know that my selfish desires won't let me do anything that is good. Even when I want to do right, I cannot. Instead of doing what I know is correct, I do wrong. . . . In every function of me I discover something fighting confronting my heed, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. What a miserable person I am! (Romans 7:eighteen–xix, 23–24)
Every bit he went on to say, Paul institute a rescue from this situation in Jesus Christ. However, as I said earlier, for Christians, believing in Jesus Christ is simply the first step. After that comes the more than challenging steps of living according to Christ's teachings.
And for many of us who are very sensitive about our own wrongs and our ain bad habits, 1 of the ways we don't follow Christ's teachings is to lay burdens on ourselves that are much besides heavy—and are sometimes completely unnecessary.
In a recent commodity titled, "Is it Like shooting fish in a barrel or Hard to Get to Heaven?" I expanded on this maxim of Jesus:
Come up to me, all yous that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you lot rest. Take my yoke upon y'all, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and yous will observe rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–xxx)
I invite you lot to read that commodity if you feel you just tin can't live up to what you know is right.
Here's another idea that might assistance:
Have you considered that even though you take some bad habits, and do some things that really aren't good, mayhap they aren't really evil either?
Permit'due south face information technology: neither you nor I nor anyone else is ever going to be perfect. Each ane of us will die every bit an imperfect human beingness, still thinking, feeling, proverb, and doing some things that we really shouldn't.
What we demand is some standard past which to decide simply how serious our bad habits and wrong actions are.
There are many possible standards. In instance you don't have one that works for you, may I suggest something really simple? The Ten Commandments. Peculiarly the 2d part of the 10 Commandments, which is about how we humans are supposed to acquit toward one another. I'm talking particularly about these commandments (in their brusk versions):
- Accolade your father and your mother.
- You lot shall not murder.
- You shall not commit infidelity.
- Yous shall not steal.
- You shall non give false testimony against your neighbor.
- You shall not covet.
"Covet" is an erstwhile-fashioned word meaning wanting something that belongs to someone else. The problem with appetent is that information technology tends to lead to the other offenses: murder, adultery, stealing, and lying.
And near honoring your father and your mother, if the parents who raised you abdicated their parental responsibilities and did a number on you, feel free to think of God equally your father and your mother instead. (For more on this, see "The Mother of All the Living.")
Now here's the question: Are the things you're currently doing that are incorrect really confronting whatsoever of these commandments? Are yous killing people, committing adultery, stealing, lying about other people, and and then on?
If the answer is yes, then you practise accept a existent problem—and you need to do the piece of work of rebirth or "regeneration" in order to overcome it.
Simply if you're non actually breaking any of these commandments, it'due south quite possible that you're laying also heavy a burden on yourself. Do yous call back you lot take to exist perfect in order to become to heaven?
I'm not saying y'all shouldn't continue to work on yourself. I'k not saying you shouldn't continue taking steps to surrender your bad habits and end doing hurtful and destructive things. There is always room for improvement.
Only are the incorrect things you say and practise really bad enough that you should go to hell for them? Chances are, they are not. They are just areas where you still accept work to exercise.
So go a petty like shooting fish in a barrel on yourself. The very fact that you're concerned about your eternal state, and want to go a improve person, suggests that yous are on the path to sky, not on that slippery gradient to hell.
God wants Y'all in heaven
God wants YOU for sky
Mayhap you lot've given upwards on yourself. But God hasn't given up on you lot. If God had given upwards on you, you would no longer be alive on this world. In fact, here's a thought to take dwelling house with y'all:
Equally long as y'all are alive and breathing on this earth, yous can notwithstanding find your way to heaven.
God has given us a lifetime here on earth because God knows that it takes some of us many years to whip ourselves into shape—with God's assistance, of grade. So use your time hither well. Then you will not be disappointed when your time on earth is finished, and y'all motion on to the next life.
If you still think y'all're going to hell, consider these final words from Ezekiel eighteen:
Therefore I will judge you, O business firm of State of israel, all of y'all co-ordinate to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and plow from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast abroad from you all the transgressions that you lot have committed against me, and get yourselves a new centre and a new spirit! Why will you lot die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasance in the expiry of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live! (Ezekiel xviii:xxx–32)
Why would God say these words to u.s. if God did non know and look that we can leave our past behind, and live a new life?
Heaven is possible for you! The choice is yours. God will exist with you, guiding and strengthening you every step of the way, considering God loves you and cares about you. God has a job for you in sky, and has prepared a home for you there. Do you really want to leave it vacant?
For farther reading:
- Ezekiel xviii: God's Bulletin of Promise . . . If You Call up at that place'southward No Hope for You lot
- Is it Like shooting fish in a barrel or Hard to Get to Heaven?
- How Can a Criminal Get to Heaven?
- What is the Unpardonable Sin? Am I Doomed?
- What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Again?
- Heaven, Regeneration, and the Meaning of Life on World
Source: https://leewoof.org/2014/01/16/if-you-think-youre-going-to-hell-please-read-this-first/