My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
The bible teaches us the extraordinary truth that God desires to have a relationship with us. We need to let the beauty of this sink in. God did not come to save the healthy or beautiful, he came to save those in rebellion against him. He came to save those who hate him. We like Adam have rejected God, the source of beauty and love to pursue the things of this world which will never satisfy us. Why is hell described as a dark parched place? It is because, our thirst cannot be quenched if we reject the Light. We have abandoned God because we want to do what is right in our own eyes. Understanding that God has called us into a relationship with him means leaving our rebellion, leaving doing what is right in our own eyes, leaving our good works, and leaving our kingdoms behind, and trust in this relationship with God.
Some say a quick prayer or assert a statement of faith and yet continue to reject God and go their own way and have no relationship with him. Some set out to perform enough good works to be worthy. Some have a lot of knowledge that puffs them up. We will seek these things and yet do not pursue a relationship with God. If we get our “fire insurance” or present our holiness or our knowledge, we are in reality only becoming more destined for hell. We have missed the power of the work and worth of Jesus. And it is solely by the work and worth of Jesus that we come to God. Our trust in Jesus brings us into a relationship. Love brings us into a relationship. You can not have God without a relationship. Love demands pursuit. Love rejoices in truth, to be known truly and to know truly. You cannot pursue a God of your own making, you must pursue a God who is. The wonderful thing is that as we come to God, we don’t have to bring works, we don’t say a prayer and then head off our own way, we come as we are, and we come to Love, a love that pursues us and embraces us. And as we our embraced by Love, the filth of the world is abandoned in the light and beauty of His glorious face.
So in short being rescued from hell is not the primary purpose of salvation. It is a consequence of the main purpose of salvation, which is to restore us into a relationship with God. So have you given up your own source of life, your own way? Have you stopped trusting in yourself and the things you have determined are right in your own eyes? Have you come to Jesus, trusting in him, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Have you abandoned your own life, only to have been embraced by true Life? Have you come to know and be known by Love?
Oh, how glorious and beautiful and satisfying Love is. We cannot be and will not be satisfied by anything less. Anything less will leave us parched and unsatisfied, well . . . only hell awaits. A branch withers away after it has been separated from its source. Have you ever felt the ache of lost love? What will the eternal heart ache be if we have rejected the One True Love? The descriptions of hell seem tame to me. But the good news is that our relationship can be restored, Love conquers, we only have to trust in Jesus, who beckons us to come home.
