Essentially, when Jesus comes again (either at the end of your life or at the end of the worldly age), he will come to destroy all traces of evil.
This also means every evil part of every person. And then, if there is anything left, that part will be saved and granted life in eternity. Paul writes that some people are saved "
only as one escaping through the flames." Whatever remains after the total destruction of evil will be a paradise beyond comparison - and that is the future hope of the Christian.
Now, there are two ways to survive:
- Be perfect.
- Be clothed with perfection by God (which is through His Messiah).
Unfortunately, option 1 is impossible. Option 2 seems fairly simple: "
If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." That is, it seems fairly simple until we realise that mere words are not enough. Believing in our hearts that something scientifically impossible is true will go against the grain for many people.
But the knock-on effect when the divine Truth is firmly rooted in our hearts, is that - almost unconsciously - we will undergo a massive life change. Our actions and behaviour will gradually become less 'worldly' and more Godly.
Hence, the Gospel is not just a
future hope, but it's hope for
now: that even
this world can be a better place. More importantly, it's the hope that God can and wants to break into people's lives with supernatural power.
The problem is that the evil forces are trying to silence the work of God and blind people to the glorious Truth. People want to be able to verbally declare allegiance to God, but live an incompatible lifestyle. Such people are still overcome by the lie that an immoral lifestyle is better than putting our lives completely in God's hands.
The worst part is that some churches prevent people from knowing and seeing the glory of God. The leaders of these churches think that God's plan of holding firmly to the Truth will fail. They try to attract large congregations by being more appealing to people, by supporting immoral lifestyles. Such churches might attract
numbers but they don't
make disciples because they are not teaching people to obey all that Jesus taught.
Jesus warns against such behaviour, yet church leaders often miss the point. They think that the Bible is a stumbling block for people wanting to keep their immoral lifestyle, and so they make their churches like that. The reality is that it is the immoral lifestyle that is the stumbling block for complete (true) freedom in Jesus.
The Anglican church is split for precisely this reason. There is even a picture of a holding a sign which reads: "Proud to be gay... now make me proud to be a Christian." Such a sign shows a complete misunderstanding of Christian teachings.
God opposes the proud. God warned the Israelites that
pride will cause them to forget Him. Paul says
love is not proud. A quick study on the verses talking of pride in the Bible will show that it is not good.
The whole thing is a question of identity.
2 Timothy 3:2-8 says that people will be lovers of themselves, proud, abusive (and throwing insults such as 'bigot'
is verbal abuse) and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
People who want to be able to keep immoral lifestyles are not seeing their identity in Jesus. Their identity is in their sexuality. This is demonstrated because they are unwilling to put their sexuality aside for the sake of following God.
Paul says that as Christians, we need to set our hearts and minds on things above, not on earthly things. We need to put to death the things of our old, earthly nature. Because, in Jesus, we are a
new creation.
So, the question is: why are some church leaders encouraging new creations to live as old creations?
Or, rather: why are some church leaders being the stumbling block which prevents people from seeing the True Glory which is freely available to all who believe in Jesus and make God their life?
