Living a life that Matters

I got a book for Christmas called Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. I have read quite a few books this past few months, but this one I’m looking forward to. I briefly got caught up with the whole Universalism debate last year when Rob Bell released his Love Wins book. I was once a big Rob Bell follower after reading Velvet Elvis and Sex God. I liked how he would challenge people to tear apart scripture and not just take it for granted. But I started to get skeptical when he started to question parts of scripture like the virgin birth. I was still relatively new to my faith and was sucked into putting more into the words of the author of a book than actual scripture itself. I will admit I was disappointed at some of the responses to Bell by some very influential church leaders and it turned me off from the whole debate (not very Christ-like responses). But I also know we have a responsibility to speak truth into false teachings. I’m only a few chapters in and so far I believe Chan and Sprinkle have presented a very objective look at this topic of hell and what God says about it.

I’m really just wanting to use this book as a tool for myself to dig deeper into scripture about the reality of hell. Hell became a reality to me back in 2007 when I visited my Grandfather in Florida. I don’t know my dad’s side of the family well as he ran away from home at a young age. I have vague memories of my Grandfather and hadn’t seen him in over twenty years. But my Aunt reached out to me on Facebook to tell me he was dying of cancer. I felt God telling me to visit this side of my family that I didn’t know very well and I ended up flying to Florida not knowing what to expect. I spent four days watching my Grandfather in bed on a ventilator and tried to get to know him. It was hard to try to reach out to him (he was on lots of drugs) and I ended up saying goodbye on my last day without ever getting a chance to tell him about Christ. He died two weeks later and the reality is my Grandfather is most likely in hell.

I don’t like this. I don’t want anyone to go to hell. But the Bible teaches that we will go to hell if we don’t accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. This is why we as Christians need to study God’s word and witness to others about the reality of hell. I feel I need to be in the Word more and I am making time each day to do so.