Jesus tells a parable about the kind of people who will live with God forever.
It is a story of judgment, of God evaluating the kind of lives people have lived.
First he deals with the "righteous," who gave food to the hungry,
gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner.
These are the kind of people who spend forever with God.
Jesus measures their eternal standings in terms of not what they said or believed
but how they lived, specifically in regard to the hell around them. The judge then condemns a group of people because they didn't take care of the needy
and naked and hurting in their midst.
They chose hell instead of heaven, and God gives them what they wanted. For Jesus, this new kind of life is not about escaping this world but about making it a better place,
here and now.
The goal for Jesus isn't to get into heaven. The goal is to get heaven here.
Rob Bell
It is a story of judgment, of God evaluating the kind of lives people have lived.
First he deals with the "righteous," who gave food to the hungry,
gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner.
These are the kind of people who spend forever with God.
Jesus measures their eternal standings in terms of not what they said or believed
but how they lived, specifically in regard to the hell around them. The judge then condemns a group of people because they didn't take care of the needy
and naked and hurting in their midst.
They chose hell instead of heaven, and God gives them what they wanted. For Jesus, this new kind of life is not about escaping this world but about making it a better place,
here and now.
The goal for Jesus isn't to get into heaven. The goal is to get heaven here.
Rob Bell
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