Swap Blog

I was reading in Heaven by Randy Alcorn - great book, I encourage everyone to give it a read - and Mr Alcorn had a line that really made me think deeply. Before you all send the hate emails, yes that is possible and I do regularly, even if you do not think so.

Now back to the statement that got me think, but a bit of background first. Mr Alcorn’s was discussing his concept that Earth is between Heaven and Hell and that Earth has a bit of both in it. The Heaven factor on earth are the great times, the fun, the joy, the pleasure, the happiness, the freedom, etc. The hell factor on earth are those components that result from sin - pain, injury, anguish, hate, disease, death, etc. The statement that really struck me was this one though, the following is a paraphrase -

The closest the saved person gets to Hell is here on earth, and the closest that the lost get to Heaven is here on earth.

Wow that really made me think about the lost out there. They really better enjoy their time here as this is as much of Heaven as they will ever see. Understand that is not a completely new idea to me, as I have always told my students that if they choose to reject God, which is their right, that this is the best it will ever be for them. I have even told them that if they reject God I encourage them to live fast, and participate in all that means, as they need to cram a eternities worth of pleasure into their few years on earth. What made it significant to me was thinking about that this is as much of Heaven as many will see. Wow what a sobering thought. Understand, that statement is not meant to scare, but to just honestly access the situation. Wow this life is going to look like Heaven to many.

I guess in reality, Mr Alcorn’s statement simply made my past thoughts on the need for the lost to push to get all they can out of this life clearer. The great news for me is that this is as much suffering as I will ever have to suffer. Wow, that is great news.. This is as bad as my life, including eternity, will ever be. That is incredible as I deserve far worse. I deserve, due to my sin, to suffer, toil, and live in anguish, yet God is blessing me enough that my life is relatively pleasant and when the bad times come they always go too. I am truly blessed, as is everyone else that is alive, as God is protecting His creation, even the lost, from all the suffering that could be in their life. He is allowing us one more day to either follow Him for the first time, or to invest further in our future.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 11:07 am and is filed under Current / General, Faith, History, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.