Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 193

Does being like Jesus mean not talking about Hell?

These days you’ll often hear people say something like, “Instead of condemning people and threatening them with Hell, we should be like Jesus and love them.”

In the following video and transcript, I share some thoughts.

When I was filming my video answer to this question, I had to smile. Now that’s not the sort of thing I suppose you should smile about, because it is an extremely serious subject. But I just kind of have to smile at how strange it is that people would make that statement. Here’s the reason: no one in the entire Bible says more about Hell and its horrors than Jesus Christ. So if we’re going to be like Jesus, it doesn’t mean we should not talk about Hell. If we’re going to be like Jesus, it means we should talk about Hell.

As far as threatening people with Hell, I’ve never threatened anyone with Hell. The very fact that I recognize that Jesus said there is a Hell and that it’s a terrible place, is simply acknowledging “I believe what Jesus said.”

I don’t have the power to send someone to Hell, nor did I think up the idea of it. It’s there in the Bible. God talks about it as a place of eternal punishment for evildoers, for those who have not experienced the redemptive work of Christ in their lives.

I don’t think I’m supposed to be God’s spokesperson in the sense of giving Him a facelift or airbrushing Him and making Him look kinder and getting Him off the hook. He’s the one who says there is a Hell. Jesus says there’s a Hell. And, by the way, He went to the cross to deliver you and me from it!

         

Related Resources

Blog: Albert Mohler on the Air Conditioning of Hell
Video: What is the purpose of Hell?
Book:  If God Is Good

A Sea Turtle Video

I love sea turtles. Some of my greatest memories are hanging out with turtles while snorkeling or diving. Here’s an entertaining 44-second video of a turtle with an apparent taste for the camera. Love these wonderful creatures God makes, and can’t wait for the world where “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

         

Related Resources

Blog: God's Artistry in Giant Sea Turtles
Resource: How can you say there will be oceans on the New Earth when Rev. 21:1 says something different?
Book: The Promise of Heaven

The Problem with Christoplatonism

In the following video and transcript, I share some thoughts:

Christoplatonism—there’s a word that you don’t hear every day. It’s actually a word that I made up (probably the only word I’ve ever made up!) and used in my comprehensive Heaven book to speak of the Christianized philosophy of Plato.

There is the secular philosophy of Plato that the material world is bad—it’s evil—and only the invisible, spiritual world is good. But then there were Christian church fathers who took up the ideas of Platonism and tried to read them into the Bible. They made the Bible appear to be condemning the physical material world. This is a real trick because you can’t really do that authentically with Scripture. God looked at the world that He had made after the sixth day of Creation, and “behold, it was very good.” He approved of His whole creation. All of it—the food that we eat, the plants, the water, the animals, marital sex—is good and made by God for good purposes.

Then sin came into the world. It’s not that sin made these things bad; it’s that we fell as human beings and started to misuse and idolize some of these things. The teaching of Scripture is not that we’ll be delivered from a material world and material bodies, but that ultimately we will live as resurrected beings in a resurrected universe for all eternity. We’ll enjoy the goodness of God in the material realm, just as we do in the spiritual realm. In fact, those two realms will be brought together forever in the eternal incarnate Christ, on the New Earth. He will be in human form forever, reigning on the throne of the New Jerusalem with Him as King of Kings and us as kings (with a lower case “k”), reigning under Him. So in God’s renewed, resurrected, redeemed creation, we will worship Him forever.

         

Related Resources

Blog: The Spiritual Body: A Real Body
Video: Heaven and Christoplatonism 
Book: Heaven

Wheat field image credit: zomb_kille via sxc.hu

Spend Your Day with Eternity in Mind

Missionary Adoniram Judson said this (read these words carefully):

A life once spent is irrevocable. It will remain to be contemplated for eternity. The same may be said of each day. When it is once past, it is gone forever. All the marks which we put upon it, will exhibit forever. Each day will not only be a witness of our conduct, but will affect our everlasting destiny. How shall we then wish to see each day marked with usefulness? It is too late to mend the days that are past. The future is in our power. Let us then each morning resolve to spend the day into eternity in such a garb as we shall wish it to wear forever. And at night, let us reflect that one more day is irrevocably gone indelibly marked.

In the video and following transcript, I share some thoughts on this quote:

Judson is saying that everything we do each day can make a difference for eternity. It really does matter how we live. Missionary C. T. Studd said, “Only one life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” John Wesley said, “I judge all things by the price they shall gain in eternity.”

God tells us that whatever we do, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do it to His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). This includes the “mundane” things of life, like driving somewhere and picking up kids in the carpool and mowing the lawn. It’s not just evangelistic crusades, your Bible study group and going to church that matter (though those things are certainly important). This is each and every thing you do, and the work that you do. Do it all to God’s glory.

Every day matters. Every hour matters. So spend it with eternity in mind.

         

Related Resources

Blog: Francis Chan on Aging Biblically—a Message for All Ages
Resource: Ann Hasseltine Judson: America’s First Female Foreign Missionary
DVD Set: Eternity 101

The Fine Art of Selection

Life consists largely of selection—choosing one alternative over another. Those things we choose are our priorities.

Deciding “I’ll read the Bible and pray when I can find the time” is like saying “I’ll give to God’s work when I can find the money.” There are an infinite number of things on which both time and money can be spent. Without a careful plan and self-discipline, expenditures always rise to meet income. Living beyond your means of time—trying to spend time that you don’t have—is courting disaster.

Time in God’s Word doesn’t just happen. You must make it happen. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). How do you renew your mind? I like to start my days listening to Scripture audio, which I play on my smartphone or iPod. If you can’t seem to carve out time to sit down, you can listen as you fix breakfast, pack lunch, load the dishwater, clean the fridge, you name it. When you’re doing something mindless, fill your mind with Scripture. And you can listen to good novels and nonfiction too! (There are websites and smartphone apps with hundreds of free audiobooks.)

The hardest lesson we learned in our first twenty years of marriage was this: life is full of good, worthwhile, and meaningful programs, activities, organizations, causes, and ministry opportunities—the vast majority of which we cannot and should not be involved with!

It is not sufficient that something be good or important. It must be the best and most important for me, and God must show me that. Why? For the same reason that if I have a hundred dollars to spend on groceries this month, I should buy meat and milk and fruit and vegetables, not donuts and chips. Most good things I will never be able to do. If I try, I’ll burn out and end up dropping out of half of them and doing the rest poorly.

We sometimes mistake Christian busyness for true spirituality, failing to realize that over-commitment is no more honoring to God than under-commitment. In our relentless pursuit of spiritual success, we drag ourselves through a dizzy, busy, barren life. Our unspoken motto seems to be “Weariness is next to godliness.”

In the next two months you may be asked to host a luncheon, collect for the American Cancer Society, teach a class, lead a discussion group, work in the church nursery, be a room mother, run a booth at the carnival, serve punch at a wedding, coach soccer, be a teacher’s aide, cook for the high school group camp-out, and go on the women’s retreat. Very likely it is God’s will for you to do a few of these good things. But all of them or even most of them? No way.

Consider making it a policy never to say “yes” to anything until you’ve thought and prayed about it for one week. Even if someone needs an answer today, tell them you’ll call them back no sooner than a few hours. Don’t impulsively say “Yes” or you will feel—and be—out of control. Of course, there’s also the woman or man who says “No” to everything and needs to learn to say “Yes.” Be sure you say “Yes” enough to get your exercise, and “no” enough to get your rest. Steward your life so that when it’s something you sense God’s prompting to do, you will have said no often enough to give you room to say yes to those relatively few things God wants you to do.

         

Excerpted from Randy and Nanci Alcorn's book  Help for Women Under Stress .

Related Resources

Blog: How do I stay motivated in my relationship with Jesus Christ?
Resource: What is your Bible study method?

Painting photo credit: arbara_v via. sxc.hu

Taking Stock of Your Time

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff which life is made of.”

Over three thousand years before Benjamin Franklin said those words, Moses said these:

Teach us to number our days aright,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

The New Testament speaks the same message: “Redeem the time,” or “Make the most of every opportunity” (Colossians 4:5b).

Time management is life management. But we don’t need to save time in order to fill it up with more responsibilities. Rather, we need to manage our lives better so we may take more time to enjoy the Lord, our families, our church, our neighbors, and all the important people and opportunities of life that too often get buried beneath our busyness.

Nanci and I sit down periodically to take stock of what we are doing with our lives. We have sometimes discovered that our real priorities—demonstrated by how we spent our time—haven’t reflected our ideal priorities, how we believe we should best spend our time.

We suggest you try this kind of evaluation yourself by making a list of all your daily and weekly activities. Here is a list (in no particular order) of some things to include. Feel free to add others:

time in Word/prayer
volunteer work
children/grandchildren
eating
shopping
getting dressed
exercise
driving
phone calls
checking email
church
parents/in-laws
school/study
daily routine
doing makeup
relaxation
watching TV
hobbies
sleep/naps
spouse
friends
yard/garden
bathing
job/career
church work
reading
social networking

For a week or two, keep track of how much time you spend on each of these, and write down the total. Once you’ve determined how you spend your time, decide how you want to spend your time. Techniques to save time are ultimately useless until you’ve decided what you want to do with the time you’ve saved. Time that is saved but uncommitted disappears.

If you’ve determined how much time you spend on the above and other things, go back and put the letter “M” for “more” next to the things you want or need to do more, the letter “L” for less” by those you want or need to do less. Cross out the things you can afford not to do, and add things you presently aren’t doing but want to do.

Note that since you are presently using all the time you have, in order to add anything, something must go. If you add a scrapbooking class on Tuesday nights, the time must come from laundry, family, exercise, devotions, sleeping, television, phone calls or somewhere else. Remember, time is like money—spend it on one thing and you can’t spend it on another. So get the best value for your time. Spend it wisely—but don’t overspend. Redeem the time, for God’s glory and the good of yourself and others.

         

Related Resources

Blog: Stewarding Your Time
Resource: Can't You See That I'm Busy?
Book:  Help for Women Under Stress

Pocket watch photo credit: fwdthought via sxc.hu

The Urgent vs. the Important

When it comes to time management, the greatest principle for us as Christians is truly a liberating one: In the final analysis, I have only one thing to do. Does this principle sound strange? It comes straight from the mouth of Jesus. Do you remember when the two sisters from Bethany, Martha and Mary, gave a dinner party for Jesus and His disciples in their home? Martha was busily doing dozens of things that “needed to be done”—or so she told herself. Mary, meanwhile, was taking the opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet and enjoy His company.

Martha got uptight because there was so much to do and so little time. She finally confronted Jesus with her resentment toward Mary for spending time with Him instead of helping her serve the meal. We can imagine Jesus gently placing His hand on Martha’s shoulder as He said:

Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:41–42)

The passage says Mary chose “what is better” or literally, “the better portion.” The word is used normally of food, and it sets up an interesting contrast. While Martha devoted herself to preparing physical food, Mary devoted herself to receiving spiritual food. She was a hungry soul, single-mindedly devoted to the spiritual meal served by Jesus.

The time we spend with God determines the direction and the quality of all the rest of our time. Because of this, the more stress we’re under and the more pressures we face, the more time we need to spend with God in order to face them properly. That’s why Martin Luther did what at first glance seems senseless—on days when he had more to do he spent more time in prayer.

Charles Hummel’s booklet The Tyranny of the Urgent reminds us we must learn to discern between the urgent and the truly important. Serving the guests seemed much more urgent to Martha than listening to Jesus. But she failed to realize that it was also far less important.

Every person’s day is filled with things that are urgent—work, appointments, housework, homework, phone calls, carpools, shopping, and checking the Facebook pages of family and friends. If I don’t do the wash tonight, there’ll be no clean clothes tomorrow. If I don’t study, I’ll fail tomorrow’s final exam. All of us feel the urgency. But if we don’t spend time with the Lord or read to our children or call our parents, life goes on. These things are not emergencies. In neglecting them we don’t neglect something urgent. We neglect something important.

At the end of our lives, when we look back, most of the seemingly urgent things will be long forgotten. What we will thank God for—or regret—is what we did about the important things.

         

Related Resources

Blog: Planned Neglect: Saying No to Good Things So We Can Say Yes to the Best
Audio: What is your personal quiet time like?
Book: Help for Women Under Stress

photo credit: tom1 via. sxc.hu

How do I respond with grace and truth if I’m invited to a gay wedding?

Many people wonder, “What if I’m invited to a gay wedding?” In the following video and transcript, I share some thoughts.

I have been invited to one, even where it might not have been legal. There are also ceremonies to “honor” this union.

I’ll take the question a step further. What if it’s a heterosexual couple where a Christian is marrying a non-Christian? I believe that 2 Corinthians 6 says it is an unequal yoke for believers to be married to unbelievers. What if there is some other reason why I believe this wedding is wrong? Should I still attend?

I would say a general rule would be that you have to figure out what constitutes approval. For instance, if you’re invited to the home of your gay neighbors and they want to serve you a meal, is it a form of approval to have dinner with them? No. I think that’s just being a nice person and a good neighbor. You’re not making any comment on the choices they make by accepting the invitation. Likewise, having them into your home for a meal would be appropriate.

A wedding, it seems to me, is a little bit different—maybe a lot different. The old wedding ceremonies would often talk about (and sometimes they still do today) how people are all joined together to witness the ceremony and the couple are making themselves accountable to all who are attending. The very attendance is in some way an expression of approval—not just, “I wish you well in general in life,” but specifically, “I wish for you the greatest happiness in this union.”

Well, if you fundamentally believe it is wrong, are you expressing approval by attending? I have counseled people before and encouraged them not to get married because I saw some huge red flags. If they still chose to get married, in the end I did not attend those weddings. This was not because I was “trying to make a statement”; I just couldn’t say I felt good about those weddings.

By the way, one of those people years later came to me and said, “Thank you for telling me the truth. You were absolutely right. Our marriage ended in disaster.” (If everyone who knew a couple like this and believed the marriage wasn’t right and was not going to work said to them, “I love you, and have always wanted to be your groomsman or bridesmaid, but I can’t in this situation”,  maybe we could avoid that sort of thing.)

So yes, I’m not comfortable with the implicit approval involved in attending a gay wedding.

On a similar note, somebody asked about having people in their home. I would say, when they’re inside your home and under your roof, you are accountable to God for that. This is a place where you have dominion and responsibility. I would not say to a couple that is living together, “You guys sleep in this bedroom.” Instead, I would have the uncomfortable conversation with them and say, “We love you. You are welcome to stay at our house. Because of our convictions, would you mind the separate bedrooms?” They might say, “Well, then maybe we should stay at a motel or wherever.” I would respond with, “But please understand that this truly is us trying to honor God. This is not something we just came up with.”

What about your child marrying somebody and you know it isn’t right? Do you allow them to stay in the same room together in your house? I think when they’re husband and wife and the marriage is a real marriage, even if you didn’t approve of it, I would say yes, sure.

But is “gay marriage” truly a marriage in God’s sight whether it’s made legal or not? I don’t think it is. I think that’s another component that’s involved.

Of course we’re to speak the truth in love and share grace with people. But I do think there is a time to say, “You know what? In the name of love, I can’t make the statement that I approve of this by attending.” (I share some specific thoughts on how to turn down the invitation in this article.)

You just have to find ways to graciously communicate this. This is very tough to do.

         

Related Resources

Blog: "Are homosexual sins worse than other sins?"
Resource: How can we lovingly decline attending my sister’s lesbian wedding?
Book: The Grace and Truth Paradox

Cake photo credit: bjearwicke via sxc.hu

Ways to Connect with Our Ministry Online

Our ministry, EPM, encourages people to live in light of eternity, and one of the ways we seek to do so is by having a presence on several major social media sites.

When it comes to the dangers of social media, I’ve shared some thoughts here in a past blog. Can Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest really be Christ-honoring, eternity-pointing tools? I believe when done carefully, they can be.

Some of you may follow us one place, but don’t know we’re present elsewhere in a different form. Here’s where you can find us online:

Since you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’ve already discovered my blog, where I post three times a week. However, you may not know that you can subscribe to receive the posts directly in your inbox. Go to www.epm.org/blog and in the left-hand column under “Subscribe to receive posts by email”, enter your email address.

If you’re on Facebook and aren’t yet following my page (www.facebook.com/randyalcorn), I invite you to join me there, where I regularly post thoughts, Christ-centered quotes, Scriptures, and the occasional pictures of my grandkids and our dog Maggie. :) I check my page daily and really enjoy reading the comments and interaction.

I encourage you to also like EPM’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/EPMinistries). It’s a great way to get the latest news from our office, including specials and promotions, information on ministries we support around the world, and more.

I post regularly on Twitter (www.twitter.com/randyalcorn), including Scriptures, quotes, and shorter versions of the thoughts that appear on my Facebook page. So if Twitter is your thing, I invite you to give me a follow.

You can also find EPM on Twitter (www.twitter.com/epmorg), where you can get updates from our ministry and links to resources.

I know some of you really enjoy Pinterest, so thought you might like to know that EPM has a presence there (www.pinterest.com/randyalcorn). Jenny at our office has done a fantastic job of gathering up attractive visuals related to my books and things I’ve written. We have pins ranging from scripture graphics, book quotes, ministries we support and many things in between. I hope you enjoy taking a look.

If you’re always on the lookout for a great book and are part of Goodreads, you’ll find us there as well (www.goodreads.com/author/show/4862.Randy_Alcorn). I share titles of books I’ve read and recommend, and we run occasional giveaways for my books.

The EPM staff post all of my videos, including everything from short Q&A clips to full-length sermon messages, on our Vimeo site (www.vimeo.com/randyalcorn). We have over 600 videos now, so there’s plenty to browse and watch. Feel free to share and use the videos as you wish.

Due to the questionable and often offensive content that’s unfortunately available on YouTube, we’ve hesitated to refer people to their site in the past. However, YouTube is the place to be when it comes to video and we want to make our content as readily available and searchable as possible. If you subscribe to YouTube channels, you can find us at www.youtube.com/eternalperspectives, where we’re adding new videos each week.

Our EPM staff would like to hear from you: What social media sites do you use and enjoy? And if you have content-related suggestions for any of our social media sites, we’d love to hear them!

         

Related Resources

Blog: Living Life or Documenting Insignificance?

All Men Seek Happiness

Blaise Pascal wrote this, and I think it’s very insightful:

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

In this video and the following transcript, I share some thoughts:

This is a very powerful statement. Pascal is saying, “Look, we all do want to be happy. So let’s get real about it. Everything we do is motivated not by what will make us happy, but by what we believe will make us happy.” If what we believe will make us happy is indeed what will make us happy, then great—we’re starting at the right place.

But why is he saying that even the person who hangs himself seeks happiness? The person who commits suicide is tired of all the unhappiness and wants it to end. They want to be “more happy,” so they even hang themselves to do it.

It’s so descriptive and has a lot of explanatory power to say, “We all seek happiness.” So what we need to do is figure out the best object of our happiness. Where should we seek happiness? Where will we find and experience a real and lasting happiness?

According to the Bible, that is in God. God is the Source and Creator of all happiness. It is only in Him, and in a right relationship with Him, that we’ll be able to experience the lesser happiness in life as flowing out of the great fountain of God’s own happiness.

         

Related Resources

Blog: Longing for Happiness, in Blaise Pascal
Resource: True Happiness!
Book:  Managing God's Money