Blessed wrote:I have questions regarding the people in the cubes...
... had all consciously rejected God during their lives outright? Or did some believe in God ... yet were sent to hell regardless..
I'm seeking a "common thread" or "common denominator" amongst the cubes inhabitants.
The characters which troubled me most in the book were those not evil.
The short answer is yes...
How they did so...easy... they made their own concepts of god of gods to escape consequences.
It is like this... We all bank on something. In other words, we gamble and place everything on something.
For me, back then, I banked on myself - my wisdom of atheism. Others, well put all their stock into self as well.
Others bank on this: Can't believe God would sentence any to hell as that is so unloving. Or, God is so loving... Or I cannot accept that Jesus is the only way because what about all those others and their ways?
Or, there is no God. Still others bank on works to earn favor with the gods or the right to reside with dead ancestors in a land of bliss. Others - all roads lead to heaven... or reason -All people are basically good so we deserve goodness from gods or god.
Their faith is in whom? Answer - Themselves...
How can God entrust us with heaven if we do not trust him?
How can we trust him if he never did anything to wake us up that we are banking on the wrong things?
He came, and shown great love and let us put the hidden nature of the human heart upon himself, by Jesus Christ, then Jesus paid our death penalty, and took our punishment in our place for putting him on the cross in the first place. He then rose from the dead 3 days latter to unite those who stop banking on other things to bank on him alone.
That makes God's love way beyond profound - it changes your life and teaches you the nature of true faith by banking it all on what He went thru for us - He is trustworthy.
That takes faith to bank all on him. Without faith, you cannot trust God at all but instead will contiune to trust other things that never ever can go so great lengths, depths, heights to rescue one.
You see, people bank on other things to rescue them but never fully bank on the Lord of Host to save them, change them, place his Spirit in them as that takes a kind of Faith/Trust in God alone, based on what he did, and not what we do or think.
By Trusting Jesus - he then works in our lives to change us (freely) to trust-worthily bear the Holy Spirit who changes us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Thus, we affect those close to us to stop living in darkness. If all people lived by the Faith in the Lord Jesus, transformed by him, actually trust him and what he says, there would be no more crime, suffering, wars...etc - note - Isaiah 61:1,2,3,4
But as long as people bank on other things - the world gets worse - that is evidence enough most folks see that they chose the wrong path by the personal wars, selfishness they trusted in, self justifications to cause harm, betray, neglect, abandon, reject, hurt, despise others and for some, yes, even their own selves.
For me - I bank it all on Jesus. I bank all on what he says about himself, '
That he is the only way, the truth, and the only life.'
There is no other way, no other gods, no other road to heaven, or any escape from God, or any escaping from the consequences of what we have done in life and to life as evidenced by how we treat friends, family self, strangers, God...
So, therefore, I place everything on Jesus as the only way, the truth, and the light of life because of what He did - alone when I deserved in not.
Others will not bank on this. Why - answer is Pride -plain and simple.
I also bank on what Jesus says about hell and warned to avoid this place at all cost, that it is eternal - never ending.
Current stats vary but around 55 to 65 million people world wide die each year. Around 6,300 to 7,800 die each hour. Sadly, most bank on something other than Jesus - choosing that faith Jesus can't be right due to what they trust in the most.
So you see, people do reject Jesus just as Romans chapter one speaks of... as their faith is something else...
Hope you understand...
Blessed wrote:This book has been on my mind for a while. I experienced something, which may, support a certain notion from the authors experience outlined in the book. But I'm not sure.
Okay, please let us know, or myself, know what it is...
Blessings
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