Choosing hell, part 2

If you choose to live a lifestyle that moves you away from God and what he considers holy and good, you are free to choose to do that. He won’t stop you.  But at the end of time, when you enter eternity, you cannot complain that you do not get to spend eternity in his presence, for you have spent your lifetime rejecting exactly that.

What church?

What defines a “Christian” church?  There are foundational doctrines and secondary ones.  I think all would agree that the secondary ones are not part of this consideration.  First, who decides what is foundational?  There are multiple thousands of “Christian” denominations in the US right now, many of them solo with no oversight other than the single person that created them.  The common mentality seems to be that anyone can take the label “Christian” upon themselves which in turn gives them the right to interpret the Bible for themselves.
When we give a definition of “church”, from where are we sourcing that definition?  In Protestant and Evangelical circles, the claim is that the definition comes from the Bible. Yet there are multiple definitions, all with the same claim of origin.  But only one can be right, or they are all wrong. This circles back around to the practice of personal interpretation.

This is one strength of the Orthodox church.  We can look back and say, "this is what the church has always believed and always practiced. This is how the church has always worshiped."  In short, we can say, the church is what the body of Christ has always believed the church to be.

Being bothered

How often, when out among other people, or when alone but thinking about previous situations wherein we interacted with others, are we bothered or annoyed by that interaction? Unfortunately, this happens far too often. I speak from experience. In our interactions with others, we tend to compare the reality of the current situation with what we believe the situation ought to be. In other words, other people's words or actions do not meet up with our expectations or preferences.
But what is really going on here? I would venture to argue that we are setting ourselves up as judges of others. We are taking our interpretation of reality and are judging the actions of others by that interpretation. But are we right in doing so? Is it our place to judge anyone? I would argue, no.
The first thing that we must acknowledge is our own limitations. We know so little. We have so little actual experience and besides knowing very little about others, we hardly know ourselves. In other words, our knowledge base is far too small to adequately assess the actions or intentions of others.
Sure, we may guess as to others motivations, based on previous interaction with them, and often we may be correct but this still does not justify our self appointed role as judge.
And honestly speaking, most times that we judge, condemn or speak ill of others, we do so simply because they are inconveniencing us. We don't like what they are doing because it puts us at a disadvantage or forces us to change our plans. In short, we are selfish. And the worse part is, that in being selfish, we are asserting that our plans and desires are best. But considering our own limitations, this is highly unlikely.
It really comes down to loving God and loving neighbor. Do we trust God to work out all things according to his will or are we determined to manipulate reality according to our own desires, regardless of how this affects others?

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Malformed prayer

When we pray, there are many preconceived ideas about what is taking place. And I would argue, at least in the Western world, wrong preconceptions. Typically, when we pray, we are asking for things. Not necessarily bad things, selfish things or even physical things, but we are asking God to do or provide something that we think would be good or beneficial.  Does this not presuppose that we think we know what would be best or possibly good?

One needs to step back and honestly assess our position.  Almost all of us have been alive for less than 100 years, yet somehow, especially those of the 18-25 year range, seem to think that we know best.  Honestly, our exposure to reality, our experience with ourselves and with others and the volume of our knowledge is incredibly small.  When we honestly think about how small, insignificant and uninformed we actually are, how could we dare to think that we know best about anything?

The Orthodox position on prayer (the historical position) is radically different than what the Evangelical/Protestant world promotes.  Prayer is not an appeal to a divine Santa Claus. Prayer is not a casual chat with a buddy.  Prayer is learning to silence our ever busy, distracted minds and "listen" for the direction of the Holy Spirit.  It is bringing our mind into our hearts and simply listening. Ultimately, it is an appeal to God to have mercy on us.

We are so distracted, so temporally minded, so earthly, that we cannot even think straight, not to mention even pray "straight".  The "Jesus Prayer" has been a foundational standard for the Christian world for many centuries, some would argue even from the beginning of the church.  This is the place to start to learn how to pray.

Judging others

When we hear someone speak and we disagree with what is being said, we are saying, in essence, that the speaker is wrong.  It is our responsibility, as Christians, who ought always to  strive to love our neighbor, to understand the source of that error (either his in speaking or our mistake in hearing him) and respond appropriately.  We must never attack, belittle or demean someone else for an error, logical, presuppositional or otherwise, for what we perceive as an error in the speaker, may be an error in our hearing/understanding. 

This is especially true when we are hearing someone speak from a different worldview.  In this case, there are surely presuppositional differences, of which, neither we nor they may be aware.  Humility is the key, as one should always be growing in understanding, therefore one will be wrong at various times.  As we grow in understanding, we ought to grow in humility, for we ought to be repeatedly seeing our errors.

Choosing Hell

In the garden of Eden, man was sinless, sin had no place, had no power and was merely a concept, unrealized.  Yet when man sinned, death took control and as an act of mercy, God allowed man to live for only a certain length of time and then be committed to the grave.  We understand this to be an act of mercy, for if man was to live forever, he would literally be in hell.  For he would continue living in the immediate presence of God, yet unable to die, would continue under the domination of sin with no means for escape. 
As we move forward in time, Jesus has come, died and risen from the grave, having defeated death.  Man now can live in the presence of God, free from the domination of sin and death is defeated, yet to be destroyed.  When death is finally destroyed, those men who have used their time on earth to refine themselves, to fight against sin and to strive for holiness, they will be preparing themselves for a glorious eternity.  But those men who waste their time, do not fight against the influence of sin and enter eternity, embodied, yet not striving after holiness, will endure a literal hell, for eternity.  This state will be the state in which man would have been, had God not introduced the mercy of death.  But at this point in time, death will have been destroyed, and those men who have not taken advantage of the resurrection of Christ, of the church as a hospital and of the power and direction of the Holy Spirit to prepare for an eternity with Christ, will suffer an eternity in eternal life, yet despising the very glory of God, who fills all things.