We read Movement 6 in Velvet Elvis this evening. For a long time I have marveled at how much God sustains me in times of trouble. He is my only true hope. The one I know will never forsake me. I have often wondered aloud how difficult it must be for people to go through difficult/tragic/hopeless kinds of experiences without the Lord as their sustenance. It must be like childbirth without childbirth education--one long scream.
I have also been realizing lately, that we don't have to wait for heaven, because it is here.
Rob Bell puts it this way:
"For Jesus, eternal life wasn't a state of being for the future that we would enter into somewhere else; it is a quality of life that starts now. Eternal life then is a certain kind of life I am living more and more now and will go on forever. I am living more and more in connection with God, and I will live connected with God forever."
But, tonight another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Just like we don't have to wait for heaven, neither must we wait for hell.
"Now if there is a life of heaven, and we can choose it, then there's also another way. A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live. The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be."
This would be the one long scream. Life without Yeshua...
4 comments:
i loved this chapter too. so oten we view our faith as do what we can until we get to heaven, when its not about that at all.
oh, how i missed you this weekend my sister!
it was a different kind of conference... even the speakers took note and commented on the "depth" of the weekend...
"Oh, the deep deep Love of Jesus"... "deep calls unto deep"
rily forever
beck
sweet.
I had to quote this here:
Because the Hebrew scriptures were considered "God-breathed," study was seen as a high form of worship that honored God (who delights in obedience more than sacrifices) and that prospered and strengthened the student (cf. Joshua 1.8). Talmud Torah, the study of God's word, formed the distinctive religious basis of all Jewish life. Study-leading-to-obedience was an act of devotion that engaged the whole person — heart, soul, mind and might — not just the intellect. Unlike the Greeks, who studied to comprehend, the Hebrews studied to revere, as A. J. Heschel has noted. Jewish learning was more than a holy pursuit, it was a pursuit of the Holy.
Within this Jewish frame of reference, the famous saying of Jesus, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," takes on quite a different emphasis. This is evident in its fuller context: "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8.31-32 NRSV). Note that this is not an abstract precept. It is a conditional promise and a covenantal invitation. In other words, the way to the truth that fully liberates, saves, and enlivens is found on the path of discipleship to Jesus! To "know the truth" is be in an intimate, master-disciple relationship with the one who can liberate us into God's life.
This commitment to "walk after" Jesus and to learn of him is so important that it must take precedence even over our most cherished relationships with "father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself." (Luke 14.26 NRSV). Yes, discipleship is costly, but the rewards are priceless — righteousness, peace and joy in the Kingdom of God. Non-discipleship to Jesus is costlier still: we miss out on the fullness of God's intended life.
~Dwight Pryor studies
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