Sin Why You Gotta Be My Only Friend on My Knees Again

Do whatever of these sound familiar?

• Every Sun the preacher shouted from the pulpit that you're a terrible sinner. God is angry at you. Considering of God'south wrath, y'all're going to burn in hell for all eternity.
• Your parents drilled it into y'all that you're simply no good. And they're probably right. You lot only tin't feel proficient about annihilation you lot do.
• You've done terrible things . . . horrible things. What you've done is so bad that y'all deserve to be in hell. There is no hope for y'all. You're a goner.
• No matter how difficult you endeavour, you simply can't be skillful. You lot know what you lot should practise, but you just keep on doing the things you lot shouldn't exercise.

If any of these are much too familiar for you lot, I'll be directly: At that place are no easy answers. Too, you've probably tried the piece of cake answers already, and learned the hard way that they don't piece of work.

I'm also not going to tell you that all you have to do is believe in Jesus. Believing in Jesus is great. I highly recommend it! Being born again is wonderful! But for Christians, believing in Jesus is simply the start. And so come the many years of growing from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity.

The fact is, if any of the things on this list describe your experience, then no matter how you piece it, y'all've got some hard work to practise. And information technology may have years to fully recover, even with God's help.

What I can offer you lot is new calorie-free and a new understanding of your state of affairs. Null I say will snap you correct out of it and instantly brand your life a bed of roses. But it will requite yous hope that there is a path out. And it might assist y'all accept your next steps on that path toward the life of sky God has in mind for you.

No matter what that preacher or your parents or anyone else has said, God created yous for heaven, not for hell. And at that place is no reason on earth that you can't find your way to heaven . . . no matter what your history.

So permit'south straighten a few things out.

Is a wrathful God aroused at y'all?

The short answer is: No.

Huh?!?

Then what near all those Bible passages the preacher quoted about God's wrath and fury?

Doesn't the Bible say, "God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11, Rex James Version)?

Well, there's a funny story almost that verse . . .

Kickoff, the give-and-take for "the wicked" came from an ancient Aramaic (or "Chaldee") version. Information technology is not in the original Hebrew text, nor is information technology in the other ancient translations. Even in the Male monarch James Version, the words "with the wicked" are in italics, significant they are not in the original. So it should read, "God judges the righteous, and God is angry every mean solar day."

Simply wait, there's more!

You lot see, the Hebrew discussion for "God" in the 2nd half of the verse could also mean "non," depending on how the Hebrew is interpreted. And that's exactly what most of ancient translations, including the well-known Septuagint Greek translation, accept in that verse. The beginning half of the poesy is also a little off in some of the older English translations.

What does this all mean?

The poesy nearly certainly should read, "God is a righteous judge, and is non angry all day." (Compare Young'due south Literal Translation for this verse.)

Pic a approximate taking hundreds of cases, one later on another, pronouncing merely judgments all day without ever getting aroused, even at the worst evildoers. That'due south the picture the Psalmist is painting. And it'due south just the contrary of what that quondam fire and brimstone preacher said!

Now, don't get me wrong. There are lots of other verses in the Bible that talk near God's acrimony and wrath. But as I pointed out in the article, "If God is Love, Why all the Pain and Suffering?" that's just how God's love looks to united states of america when nosotros're bent on an evil and destructive path that'due south opposed to God'south dearest.

God's beloved is like the warmth of the sun. Just what if you're a snowman? What if you lot want to exist cold and unloving? If you're a snowman, God'southward love looks wrathful and subversive. It's a horrible, destructive oestrus that melts and destroys you.

When the Bible talks about God's wrath, it's talking about the effect God's love has on everything that's evil and fake in us and in our earth. Information technology'due south merely when nosotros identify with the evil and cling to it as our own that nosotros feel God'due south love as acrimony and wrath. And the Bible frequently speaks to u.s. according to the way things seem to u.s.a., even if the reality is different from God's perspective.

Did you know that the Bible talks well-nigh God's dearest far more than often than information technology talks almost God's wrath? Hither is a beautiful passage assuring u.s.a. that God feels only dear toward us, whether we are evil or good:

You have heard that it was said, "Yous shall honey your neighbour and hate your enemy." But I say to you lot, Honey your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his lord's day rise on the evil and on the expert, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43–45)

And the famous verses from the Gospel of John:

For God so loved the world that he gave his merely Son, and then that anybody who believes in him may not perish merely may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the earth to condemn the world, only in order that the world might be saved through him. (John iii:xvi–17)

Discover that it doesn't say God was so angry with the world, but God so loved the earth.

And then hither's the first ray of new low-cal, and the almost of import new information about your situation: No matter what you may have been told, God is not angry at you. It's just the contrary. No matter what you have done, and no thing how horrible or worthless a person you lot remember you lot are, God loves you.

God sends you the sun of divine love, and the pelting of divine truth, whether you are evil or skillful, and whether you are righteous or unrighteous.

There is null yous can do to brand God stop loving you. As the Psalm says:

O Lord, you lot accept examined me, and you lot know me. . . .
If I go upwardly to heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in hell, y'all are in that location.
(Psalm 139:ane, 8)

Are you condemned because of what your parents did?

Our parents were responsible for bringing us into this world. They are supposed to dear us, care for united states, teach us right from wrong, and guide united states toward a salubrious and responsible adulthood. And some of us were fortunate enough to have parents who did a fine task.

Unfortunately, some of us were born of parents who fell far short of the mark. Maybe they just weren't prepare to have children. Maybe they were too focused on coin or power or pleasance to actually care near their children. Maybe they were merely obviously evil and destructive types who used and abused their children at volition. Bad parents can cause great damage to their children.

If you were ane of those unfortunate children, does this mean your life is ruined from the start, and you might besides simply throw in the towel?

In ancient times, it was common for whole families to be condemned and executed for the offenses of the caput of the household. For example, when three men named Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against God's commandments to the ancient Hebrews about the priesthood, not merely they, but their wives and children died as a upshot of their disobedience. You tin read the story in Numbers sixteen.

Even so, in course of fourth dimension, God pronounced an cease to the exercise of children being judged guilty for the crimes of their parents. This pronouncement comes in Ezekiel 18—one of the most beautiful chapters in the Hebrew Bible. Here's how the affiliate begins:

The word of the Lord came to me: What do y'all mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of State of israel, "The parents accept eaten sour grapes, and the children'due south teeth are assail edge"? As I live, says the Lord God, this maxim shall no more exist used past you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent too equally the life of the kid is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die. (Ezekiel 18:1–four)

The chapter then goes on to explicate in detail that if a father is good, only his son evil, and then only the son shall be held guilty; and if that son has a son who sees how his father lived, and resolves not to live that way, but to live a good life instead, so only the male parent, not the son, shall be held guilty.

Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

To u.s. today, yeah. Our justice system is based on individual innocence and guilt. To the ancient Israelites, though, this seemed quite unjust. They thought it was right and proper that if a man sins, his whole family unit should exist punished!

God was quite articulate, though, that this was not to be our practice anymore:

When the son has done what is lawful and correct, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The person who sins shall dice. A child shall non endure for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent endure for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own. (Ezekiel 18:nineteen–xx)

Withal, when it comes to our spiritual and emotional life, sometimes we haven't gotten the message. We think that considering our parents were evil, and neglected or mistreated the states, that means we, as well, are doomed, and headed toward hell.

It's non true.

Yes, nosotros may have a long, hard road undoing the harm that our parents did to us. Information technology might accept much prayer, counseling, and much difficult and painful introspection and rearranging of our emotional and social life.

But God does not hold the states responsible for the errors and sins of our parents. And neither should nosotros. If our parents drilled into u.s. that nosotros're but no good, they were lying to us. And if they used and abused us, they were perpetrating evil on us.

That lying and that evil was theirs, not ours. And though it did have a profound effect on us, at that place is a pathway out of the damage our parents did to u.s.a.. It is the path of recognizing that what our parents did to us had zero to practise with us. It was their own immaturity, fail, and evil, not ours, that damaged united states. As we recognize that what they said was not true, and what they did was simply plain wrong, we can gradually recognize that we ourselves are not what they said we were, nor did we deserve what they did to u.s.a..

If y'all were neglected or abused verbally or physically by your parents, it is not going to be an easy path out of what they did to you. But there is a path. And information technology starts with recognizing that you are not condemned for the sins of your parents. God created yous for a reason. God loves you, and has prepared a identify for you in heaven (meet John fourteen:1–3, 1 Corinthians ii:ix).

Y'all have the rest of your life to leave behind the lies and the wrongs that were inflicted on you when you were young. You have the rest of your life to walk, even if painfully sometimes, the path toward the life of sky that God has prepared for you.

Have you committed terrible sins?

What if it wasn't your parents who did a number on you lot? What if you yourself have done terrible, horrible things? What if yous don't deserve to get to heaven because of what you've done?

If that's the state of mind you're in, then Ezekiel 18 has a message for you too:

But if the wicked plough away from all their sins that they have committed and go on all my statutes and practice what is lawful and correct, they shall surely live; they shall not dice. None of the transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered against them; for the righteousness that they accept done they shall alive. Have I any pleasance in the decease of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should plow from their ways and live? (Ezekiel 18:21–23, emphasis added)

Based on his feel in the spiritual world, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) tells united states of america that this is precisely how it works afterwards we dice. In Heaven and Hell #509, he writes:

No one suffers whatsoever punishment for evil things washed in the world, only for current evil deeds. . . . Practiced spirits are never punished, though, even though they accept washed bad things in the world. This is considering their evils do not come back.

Swedenborg is simply affirming what God tells us in Ezekiel 18: We are not held responsible for things nosotros have done in the by. Only for things nosotros go along doing in the present. If nosotros have done something terrible in the past, but have repented of it, have reformed our character, and no longer do things like that, so none of the transgressions nosotros have committed volition exist remembered against us.

If you have done something terrible, at that place is no fashion to undo it. Yous and those yous injure will however accept to alive with the repercussions of your actions. Simply one of those repercussions is not that y'all must go to hell for it.

Of class, if in that location is any way you lot can make amends for what you lot accept done, yous should certainly do so. All the same, when your fourth dimension on this world comes to an cease, you will find your place in heaven or in hell depending on the person you lot have become in the present, and the way you are living now, non based on any wrongs y'all take done in the by.

Equally the one-time saying goes, "Every saint has a past, and every sinner a time to come."

And then please don't worry about the terrible things y'all take done in the past. God has already forgiven y'all for them. God has no pleasance in your eternal decease. No affair what you've washed, God wants you to plough from your old ways and live! Now it's time to build a new life for yourself, so that you won't do things like that anymore. For more than on how to do this, see the article, "What does Jesus Hateful when He Says we Must be Built-in Once more?"

What if you continue doing things yous shouldn't?

It sounds like you're in the same gunkhole as the apostle Paul when he wrote:

I know that my selfish desires won't allow me exercise anything that is good. Fifty-fifty when I want to exercise right, I cannot. Instead of doing what I know is right, I do wrong. . . . In every part of me I discover something fighting against my listen, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. What a miserable person I am! (Romans 7:18–19, 23–24)

As he went on to say, Paul found a rescue from this situation in Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, equally I said earlier, for Christians, believing in Jesus Christ is just the first step. Later on that comes the more challenging steps of living according to Christ's teachings.

And for many of united states who are very sensitive nearly our own wrongs and our ain bad habits, one of the means we don't follow Christ's teachings is to lay burdens on ourselves that are much too heavy—and are sometimes completely unnecessary.

In a recent commodity titled, "Is it Like shooting fish in a barrel or Difficult to Get to Heaven?" I expanded on this proverb of Jesus:

Come up to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give yous rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you volition find residue for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)

I invite you lot to read that article if y'all feel yous just can't live up to what you know is right.

Here's some other idea that might assist:

Have you considered that even though you take some bad habits, and do some things that really aren't proficient, maybe they aren't really evil either?

Let'south face up information technology: neither you nor I nor anyone else is always going to exist perfect. Each one of u.s.a. volition die every bit an imperfect human being, still thinking, feeling, saying, and doing some things that we really shouldn't.

What we need is some standard by which to decide just how serious our bad habits and wrong deportment are.

There are many possible standards. In instance you lot don't have one that works for you, may I suggest something actually elementary? The Ten Commandments. Peculiarly the 2d part of the Ten Commandments, which is about how we humans are supposed to carry toward one another. I'one thousand talking specially about these commandments (in their curt versions):

• Laurels your father and your mother.
• You shall not murder.
• You shall not commit adultery.
• You shall not steal.
• You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
• You shall not covet.

"Covet" is an old-fashioned word meaning wanting something that belongs to someone else. The trouble with coveting is that it tends to lead to the other offenses: murder, adultery, stealing, and lying.

And near honoring your father and your female parent, if the parents who raised you lot abdicated their parental responsibilities and did a number on you, experience free to think of God as your father and your mother instead. (For more on this, see "The Female parent of All the Living.")

Now hither's the question: Are the things you're currently doing that are wrong actually against any of these commandments? Are y'all killing people, committing infidelity, stealing, lying nigh other people, so on?

If the answer is yes, and then y'all do have a real trouble—and you lot demand to practise the work of rebirth or "regeneration" in order to overcome information technology.

But if you lot're not actually breaking whatever of these commandments, it's quite possible that you're laying too heavy a burden on yourself. Do you think you have to be perfect in guild to go to heaven?

I'm not proverb you shouldn't go on to work on yourself. I'm not saying you shouldn't continue taking steps to requite up your bad habits and stop doing hurtful and destructive things. In that location is always room for improvement.

Simply are the wrong things y'all say and practise actually bad enough that you should become to hell for them? Chances are, they are not. They are simply areas where you still accept work to exercise.

And so go a little easy on yourself. The very fact that you're concerned about your eternal state, and want to get a better person, suggests that you lot are on the path to heaven, not on that glace slope to hell.

God wants Yous in heaven

God wants Y'all for sky

Maybe you lot've given upward on yourself. But God hasn't given up on you. If God had given upwards on you, you would no longer be alive on this world. In fact, here's a thought to take home with you:

As long as you lot are alive and breathing on this globe, yous can all the same find your way to heaven.

God has given us a lifetime here on earth because God knows that it takes some of us many years to whip ourselves into shape—with God's help, of grade. So use your time here well. And then you lot will non be disappointed when your time on earth is finished, and you movement on to the next life.

If you still remember you're going to hell, consider these final words from Ezekiel 18:

Therefore I will guess you, O house of Israel, all of yous according to your ways, says the Lord God. Apologize and plough from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity volition be your ruin. Cast abroad from you all the transgressions that you lot have committed against me, and become yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, so, and alive! (Ezekiel 18:xxx–32)

Why would God say these words to us if God did non know and expect that nosotros can leave our past behind, and live a new life?

Sky is possible for y'all! The choice is yours. God will be with you lot, guiding and strengthening y'all every stride of the way, because God loves y'all and cares almost you. God has a job for yous in heaven, and has prepared a dwelling for you there. Do you really want to leave it vacant?

For farther reading:

• Ezekiel 18: God's Message of Hope . . . If Yous Think there'southward No Promise for You lot
• Is information technology Piece of cake or Difficult to Go to Heaven?
• How Can a Criminal Get to Heaven?
• What is the Unpardonable Sin? Am I Doomed?
• What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Over again?
• Heaven, Regeneration, and the Meaning of Life on World

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Source: https://leewoof.org/2014/01/16/if-you-think-youre-going-to-hell-please-read-this-first/

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