Pretending

Here is a safe bet, anybody with any brains who actually believes Hell is a real place, has no interest in going there.  Safe bet because if they have brains enough to be rational, they can't like the idea of eternal dark and pain which are together in one place.  The truth is, however, that most folks don't believe it to be real.  Here's why- we are the age of technology, we have arrived here from science, to a large extent we are (most particularly in the United States) believers in what we can do with our time and our money.

We are fiercely independent people,
and we don't like authority when it is
not extremely proper or necessary
(defined as a police officer giving
traffic directions to a funeral procession,
proper and necessary)- all that being
put together, we trust, but that trust
isn't in God, it's in our own innate
ability to solve problems.  We
believe that we through our own
personal strength, solve the problems
that we face, and we also believe
that people who don't are weak and
incapable of being grown up and
well adjusted in their lives.  Lie to
me and tell me that's not exactly
how you and others around you
treat each and every day.  Only
problem with that is everything in it-
every part of that construct is against God-
against the very nature of God; but
most people don't know that because
they don't know God, certainly, a deeply
worshipful person realizes that they
cannot know God, not really, but we
can depend upon God, we can know
God to the extent that we know His
Son Jesus; and that's all we need to
know; really, Jesus is enough-
problem there is, how many folks
do you know who really know Jesus?

The true Christ, not the nice Christ,
often He wasn't, the Christ who has a
sense of humor, often Jesus just had
to outright laugh at the stuff He was
being asked; and that usually doesn't
come out until you dig down into the
Aramaic language itself, and then, BAM-
suddenly there it is, He was laughing
at the Pharisee's who were the epitome
of dumb and stupid in asking Jesus
where He got the authority to do
what He had done- that's a stupid
question to ask - God.  But the Pharisee's
believed they knew who Jesus was,
a faker, a liar, and a man who had
come to dislodge their choke-hold
on the people who wanted to get
to know God.  Those Pharisee's
believed that when they rebuilt
the Temple, under their own sweat
and strength, that it would never be
destroyed again!  When Christ said
it would, they were furious at such
an insult to their strength, their money,
their time!  Any of this starting to
sound like churches, outfitted with
their money, their strength, their time?

Any of this starting to sound like a
culture where people say "all they
are is whiners," instead of "I pray
I can be compassionate enough to
understand where their hearts are
hurting at."  Oh my, where is the
love of Christ in this generation?
I'd say...like the movie- it's "Gone Baby Gone."