Hello, nice people.
We had to get to the airport fairly early to pick up friends who spent some vacation time in Hawaii—mainly on the island of Kawai. You may have heard on the news what they experienced there. Can you even imagine something like 27 inches of rain falling within a 24-hour period?! Wow!
Lunch. Becki has some very nice raisin bread that she baked recently. There is still some leftover chicken that was cooked in the Traeger grill. I think I will build a sandwich from those resources—along with some tomato, ripe avocado, maybe a little Tabasco—and see what happens. Does that sound good? It does to me.
May you digest your day well. Blessings. Ray.
Think about it—what does it really and truly mean to TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING (Proverbs 3:5)? How is that most accurately done? What all does it entail? I have come to believe that it means a lot more than simply trusting that there is a God out there somewhere. It means trusting in the truth and trustworthiness of God’s revelation to man in the form of His Word—the Bible. I have to trust that that body of revelation is a fully adequate disclosure of everything the Sovereign Author wants me to know about Himself, about myself, about sin, about Satan, about salvation, about eternal life in heaven, and about eternal punishment in hell. Oh oh!—right here is where a lot of people, even “Christians,” will choke. They may complain, “Hey, man!—‘God is love’—just focus on that! Don’t go freaking people out with this eternal hell stuff! That’s divisive! That can’t be something sanctioned by a God of love!” Please understand what has just happened. The complainer has just demonstrated his distrust in God and His revelation—and his choice to lean to his own preferential understanding.
I think a logical point is worth making: If anyone chooses to lean to his own understanding so as to disbelieve in a real horrible eternal hell, he thereby disqualifies himself from being an authentic Christ-following Bible believer. It cannot be otherwise! In fact, it would be quite appropriate to simply toss one’s Bible in a dumpster—or use it for starting a fire. After all, if it cannot be trusted to be ALL TRUE, how can it be trusted to be TRUE AT ALL? It is Jesus Himself who chooses to freak us out with this TRUTH. It’s not intended to be a pleasant doctrine. Three times in this brief passage Jesus speaks of HELL. And in each case He adds this terrifying description—“This is where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out” (vv. 44, 46, 48, TPT).
Pondering this ominous Biblical truth, there are times when I feel overwhelmed with concern over what appears to be a general ignorance, indifference, and/or passivity on the part of even believers concerning the absolute truth of ETERNITY—and the Biblical finality of only two options—heaven or hell.