Faith, part 3

Isn’t this why we teach our kids about God? It’s not just a general knowledge of God we are trying to give them but rather knowledge that is according to Godliness. We want them to live in a way that brings glory to God not only for their own sake but because we want everyone we encounter in life to go to heaven also.
 

I got to thinking about this issue last week. It all has to do with faith. We believe there is a heaven, don’t we? Most of the world believes it also. They may have different approaches as to how to get there, but for the most part, people believe in heaven. However, a born-again Christian does more than just believe in heaven: he/she knows it is real, their spirit bears witness with the Spirit of God as to its truth. Subsequently, we are far more driven to see to it that others go there than those who only kind of believe in heaven. 

This is why helping others gain knowledge, which leads to Godliness, is so critical to us and not to others. We know we are on our way to heaven and we want our loved ones to join us there someday - and not just our loved ones but everyone.

What came to me this past week as I was thinking about this was this: if a person is not heavenly minded, if their affections are set upon this earth and not on heavenly things, they don’t see life from the same perspective as we do. Therefore, when we tell people they shouldn’t live certain ways, it is interpreted as hate speech.

The truth is, we, along with God, want all people to go to heaven, so our positions on issues are all based on whether a lifestyle promotes godliness. If it doesn’t, we oppose it because it will be detrimental to their eternity – not because we have anything personally against them as human beings. 

The opposite is true. If we knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that a particular lifestyle would send someone to hell instead of heaven – and if we truly hated them – we would not feel compelled to warn them. We would just remain silent on the issue and let them live without any interference, secretly knowing that they will burn in the flames of hell when they die. That lack of correction is hatred. 

That reminds me of a time at Bible Camp, back in my Youth Ministry days (I’ve probably shared this before, but it fits here well). There was a boy who seemed to find himself in trouble every day. He was determined the Camp rules didn’t apply to him. On the third day as he was being disciplined (yet again), a couple of us were talking with him. He was convinced that we hated him because we were disciplining him. We told him we loved him and that was why we were disciplining him. We shared a few Bible passages with him and he became very quiet. Then he said, “I just discovered I am not loved at home: My parents have never disciplined me for anything.” Yes, that conversation continued on for quite some time and we were able to really minister to that boy and he was a very different person the rest of the week.

Continued tomorrow