Well, I just finished the book ("Love Wins" by Rob Bell). And that will just have to suffice for an introduction.
Some people argue over whether "love wins" or "God wins"... those are actually two separate book titles that have come to represent two separate so-called camps of Christians. But God is love. He is the very definition of love, He embodies love. So when God wins, so does love. Or, when love wins, it's because love IS God, and He has won.
This book has really broadened my perspective/mindset on my own faith. It articulated some concepts that I think I've been buying into for some time without being able to aptly express them. I have always believed in a loving God. And I have never been comfortable with a God who would actively send people to hell, forever apart from Him. [I hasten here to point out that I need not be comfortable with God for Him to be true, or good, or right, or loving.]
Over the past few years I've become fond of the idea that real love brings freedom--in true love fear of rejection is banished, and a love that is real must be a love that has been chosen.
My beliefs about heaven and hell and the fate of mankind are not all easily explained, black and white, and concrete. Some are. There are things I believe to be true about God that I have been convinced of since elementary school, and continue to cling to and depend on. But my understanding of heaven and hell, and more importantly, my understanding of who God is and how He interacts with us as humans, are ever-developing. From page 175 of "Love Wins" until the end, I agree with the majority of what Rob Bell says. The God that Bell describes in these pages is the God that I am in love with... the God who has, and does, and always will love His people. The God who loves us enough to let us choose Him, and consequently, to also not choose Him.
I really enjoy two illustrations Bell uses at the end of the book. They spring from the well-known story of the prodigal son. Bell explains that in this story, are really three stories. There is the older son's story--what he believes about his father, himself, and the way their relationship works. This older son is separated from his father's love because he has a wrong understanding of how his father's love works. He thinks he can earn it, in fact he thinks he has earned it. He misses the truth that he never had to earn anything, that his father's love always has been and will continue to be given freely. His father loves him beyond a reason why, and there's nothing he can do to deserve that love or to drive it away. Then there's a younger son, and his story. This younger son is separated from his father's love because he, also, has a wrong understanding of how his father's love works. Instead of self-righteousness, his hang-up is that he feels unworthy. And he is. But his father disregards that, because in the same way that the father loves the older son beyond a reason why, so he freely loves the younger son. No amount of obedience increases his love for his sons, and no amount of disobedience can jeopardize his love for his sons.
This is how God loves us.
We, like the sons in this story, are left with a choice. Do we choose our version of the story? Or do we choose our Father's?
Do we trust in ourselves, or do we trust in our Father's love?
"You rewrote my name, and shackled my shame, and opened my eyes to see, I am free"--these are lyrics from a song called Liberty by Shane and Shane. God has rewritten our stories, setting us free from our own versions of our past.
We can all tell stories of the good and the bad we have lived through, the fantastic and awful things that have been done to us, and the wonderful and horrible things we have done ourselves. But God tells a different story about each of us. In His story, those things we have experienced and done still matter. They have real consequences and shape our world. But they are not what is most important, they do not define us or our fate. Only His love defines us. And we are given a choice that determines what our life will look like, now and later, and that choice is what we will do in response to God's love.
Which leads to the second illustration--the party. In the story, the father and both of his sons are at the party that the father is throwing. The one son is enjoying the party, rejoicing in his new-found life and trusting in his father's version of his story. The other son rejects the celebration, unable to relinquish his grip on his own version of who he is and how things should work.
Both sons are invited to the party, but the father lets them choose whether or not they participate and enjoy it. You can't force someone to participate in and enjoy a party... that's ridiculous. By definition, if it's forced enjoyment, it isn't really enjoyment. Forced love isn't really love.
God providing us with a choice in how we respond to His love isn't cold indifference. His love necessitates our freedom. Because if we didn't have a choice, it wouldn't be love, would it?
I don't know if there will come a day when every human will decide to join the party. I don't know if there is some point in the future at which the Holy Spirit will have been embraced in the hearts of every human being and we will all respond to God's love with trust and acceptance, participating in and enjoying His forever-fiesta.
Some people firmly believe that that day will come. Others argue heatedly that that day is impossible. I say we can't know whether or not that day will come, or whether or not it is even possible (see my last post). Because what matters is whether or not we choose to trust God's version of our story, and how we respond to His love for us.
When we surrender to a love so huge and so amazing it can only come from God, then things like worship, sharing our faith, serving others, and living lives filled with grace come more naturally. And we discover that our God doesn't need to be defended, because He's bigger and more powerful than that. And we discover we don't need to figure out who is "in" and who is "out," because life with Him is about SO much more than that. And we discover that people actually want to be a part of our lives and get to know our God, because He is just that great and that loving. And there's the hope!
Hope is found in realizing that Jesus doesn't rescue us from God, but that "God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer" (pg 182). Hope is found in giving up our version of our story, and embracing God's rewritten one. Hope is found in trusting in God's love. It's found in accepting His invitation, coming to His party, and celebrating with Him--living life His way because we know He wants only the absolute best for us. Hope is found in acknowledging that there is nothing you can do or say (or not do or not say) that could take away God's love for you (see Romans 8). Hope is found in responding to God's love with a loud, "Yes! I believe that you love me, and I love you too!"
Here are some words I find especially helpful from Bell's book:
"To reject God's grace, to turn from God's love, to resist God's telling, will lead to misery. It is a form of punishment, all on its own.
This is an important distinction, because in talking about what God is like, we cannot avoid the realities of God's very essence, which is love. It can be resisted and rejected and denied and avoided, and that will bring another reality. Now, and then.
We are that free.
When people say they're tired of hearing about 'sin' and 'judgement' and 'condemnation,' it's often because those have been confused for them with the nature of God. God has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone.
God extends an invitation to us, and we are free to do with it as we please.
Saying yes will take us in one direction; saying no will take us in another.
God is love, and to refuse this love moves us away from it, in the other direction, and that will, by very definition, be an increasingly unloving, hellish reality.
We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of God, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call hell" (pg 176-177).
I don't agree with everything Bell says in his book, but I don't agree with everything any Christian says, if I listen long enough. :P I do appreciate much of what he has to say about the nature of heaven, the nature of hell, and the nature of God. I plan to continue searching, learning, and growing as I keep getting to know God; and the more I find of God the more I realize how much more there is to explore! He is bigger than I will ever understand, and heaven, hell and salvation are more than I thought they were before (and I trust more than I understand now, as well).
Salvation is so much more than just going to heaven and avoiding hell at the end of your life. Salvation is an invitation to live life enjoying God's love for you--being constantly freed from sin, death and destruction and learning how to live in purity, joy, and grace. Like Bell explains, "Jesus calls disciples to keep entering into this shared life of peace and joy as it transforms our hearts, until it's the most natural way to live that we can imagine. Until it's second nature. Until we naturally embody and practice the kind of attitudes and actions that will go on in the age to come. A discussion about how to 'just get into heaven' has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus because it's missing the point of it all" (pg 179).
You see, the good news IS for all people. Will everyone accept their invitation to the party, someday? I don't know. While the answer to that question is a fascinating mystery, one worth thinking about, it can't be our focus. God is about us living in His love NOW. God wins, and love wins, because God's love defeated death, symbolized by Jesus' death on the cross and His resurrection. It's more than a ticket, more than a life-raft. He rescued us with a purpose. To invite us into mind-blowing-ly awesome life. Life that is real and full of Him. A life in which we can join Him in His mission of bringing heaven to earth by living as people who are overflowing with His love.
Now that is some pretty great news. :)
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