Love people.

Lately I have had more conversations with people who've been hurt or offended because of some ignorant statement a Christian has made to them about eternity.
I understand grace covers the multitude and grace covers more than just our nights of too many beers, grace also covers our ignorance and our misguided words.  It seems I hear too many times from people not wanting to accept the "love" of the church that "church" people have made pretty ugly statements of fact that were based on loose theology.  I think as Christians we should take into more consideration what flows out of our mouth.

I am not claiming to know what I am always writing about.  Everything I post is simply my opinion and could very well be wrong.  Having said that, from my recollection the prerequisite for anyone to gain access to heaven is to believe Jesus is the Son of God, confess Him with their mouth, and have a relationship with Him.  Also from my recollection the only sin which is unforgivable is that of "blaspheming the Holy Spirit."

I believe what I just wrote is biblical and I did not leave anything out.  If so, I am just wondering why I hear so many stories from "non-believers" (Sorry Peggy) about "Christians" telling them they won't make it to heaven because of the way they choose to live their lives.

Let me be very clear.  Nowhere in the bible are followers of Christ commissioned to go into all the world and inform the nations of their eternal doom.  The "Preaching the Gospel" the great commission speaks of does not mean correcting someones behavior.      
I believe "preaching the gospel" could look like us sharing the love we have with Jesus and inviting others into the same love.  We don't have to tell someone they are going to burn in hell in order to share the love of Jesus with them.  In fact, I cannot remember one example in the Bible of Jesus telling a specific person they were going to burn in hell.  He talks about hell, about the weeping and what not, but He never tells someone they will specifically experience hell if they don't turn to Him.

Look at His interaction with the prostitute on death row.  He doesn't walk up and tell her she's about to die and go to eternal flames.  He saves her life from the religious people who probably already told her she'd spend eternity in hell.

The book of Revelation references angels who circle the throne of God constantly.  From my memory the book says every time they circle the throne of God they see something new about Him.  If the angels who circle His throne don't know everything about Him what makes us believe we know everything about Him?

We can have the entire bible memorized and still not know enough to tell ANYONE where they will spend eternity.  We cannot scare someone into heaven no matter how convincing we think we are.

In my opinion I believe what's worse than the worst of all sinners is the person who ignorantly misrepresents Jesus Christ to the world.

I love Jesus, I believe the bible is the word of God, I believe there is a heaven and a hell.  I am simply not going to walk around claiming to be the authority on someones eternal life.  I can share the gospel, the love of Jesus, the truth about truth, and never tell someone they are going to burn if they don't accept what I am saying.

Let's stop trying to sell Jesus.  Let's stop trying to scare people into heaven and relationship with Him.  Let's stop walking around with our chest puffed out trying to mask our own insecurities and failures.  Just go out and love people the way you would want to be loved and not the way you were loved.  Just because you were scared into heaven doesn't mean it was right.  I'm sorry if you fell for heaven through the preaching of hellfire and eternal damnation, that's not how Jesus did things.  He didn't frighten  people He loved them.

Let's start loving people the way Jesus loved people.

Sorry if this was harsh and rude or even wrong.  I'm just tired of apologizing to people for stupid things Christian's said.

Love y'all,

Anthony

P.S.  Feel free to correct me.