When speaking to non-Christians, I have discovered an odd fact. Many of them are worried about the justice of a God sending anyone to Hell, but seem quite content to hope for Heaven.
Since most of us seem to want to be our own gods, the libertarian universe God made needs Hell so that men who will be god can go pretend forever that they are sufficient in themselves.
Only people who want to be in Hell will be there and sadly that is exactly what most of us want. We want to be lord . . . even if just of our six feet of the Inferno and so God gives it to us . . . since the very joys of Heaven would pain us more in our little and weak state.
Heaven is Hell to those who will not spiritually change in order to experience its potent love . . . it burns those who could not bother to give up childish or twisted joys for the bright, shining perfect passions of paradise.
Just looking at my own life, makes me think this strange. Why would the One who is perfect Goodness, Beauty, and Truth want to spend eternity with me? I can hardly stand myself . . . and I helped make me who I am!
In a perfect cosmos it is humanity that whines and natters and refuses to find its roles. I am part of that folly.
But why in the world would I get to go to paradise?
The problem is not just what I have done . . . though anyone grown up to look over their life does not have to be very reflective to realize the pain he has caused. I am sorry for so many things . . . and the past cannot change. How can God love me given that?
Forgiveness, perhaps, I can just imagine, but then I realize that the problem is my broken humanity. Men and women are not what they should be . . . we can imagine what should be, but are not that best created things. We are utterly broken . . . and our brokenness causes us to hear the music of heaven as the knell of doom and the feel His divine love as judgment.
God is always pouring out love like some kind of Sun of Perfect Passion . . . and it is only my perversity that makes me see that bright light as damning and harmful. He would strengthen my eyes so I could see in it . . .
This is why no man or woman can even hope to be saved by good works. We are the problem. Our foe is our brokenness . . . God does not so much judge us for that original defect as find Himself unable to let those into Paradise who would find it a great torture.
So our Good God took on Himself the task of fixing our fallen state. He became man and repaired our vileness from the inside. He came into the cosmos as an actor and reconciled us to the Divine Love from the inside.
All we need to do is accept this grace and allow it to work within us. At the very first moment of acceptance, while still broken and before a single repair has begun, He will count the wish as the deed and deliver us. He will complete the work slowly . . . as from that point on He has all of eternity to make us able to love and be loved.
Perfectly!
There is no good reason for His doing this apart from love. He loves us . . . and that is enough! Why does He love us? Why do I love my wife, Hope, or my sweet children? The mystery of love, which we experience every day, is the only answer we are likely to get.
Father loves us! He will change us and make us fit to receive that love! There is forgiveness for our sins (amazing!) and sanctification for our bodies and souls (astounding!).
My Lord and my God, but it is great joy to be a Christian!
God loves me. What a blessed thought! He humbles me to exalt me, but in reality His bothering to notice me . . . even to humble me . . . is exalting. Creator God, all wise, cares enough to correct me. His humbling is exaltation . . . and even that He would bother to damn us elevates us beyond our worth . . . but that He would, in His infinite love offer Paradise and His company for eternity to anyone who would be reconciled to Him . . . that is beyond expectation.
Just this moment, every shred of depression lifts and I am amazed, really amazed, at this grace.