the radio goes to hell again

If I hear one more radio preacher say that Jesus talked more about hell than he did heaven I am going to puke. Jesus only talked about heaven. Everything Jesus said and did was heaven. It is all he offers us. Sometimes I get the impression from being around Christians that they think Jesus offers not only heaven, but also blessing and forgiveness and riches and abundance and a whole list of other things. Healing. Success. Conviction. Service. A long list. And when I engage that ideology, I get...tired. So many things to choose from. Do I get it all? Or do I decide which? Does he decide which?

Jesus only offers heaven. That's it. Heaven is way bigger and way more beautiful and way more real than these people make it.

When you talk about heaven as a real place somewhere else, and when you talk about hell as a real place somewhere else, you betray yourself. Your underwear is showing. You show how fragmented your belief in God is. You show that you think something called heaven is important, but so is paying bills and getting enough exercise and not flirting. The problem with this is that Jesus had no compartments. He wasn't concerned at all with paying bils or getting enough exercise or flirting.

Everywhere Jesus went he took heaven with him. This is why there is always a halo above his head in every painting.

All he talked about was heaven. When he talked about the chasm separating Lazarus and the rich man, and when he talked about the wedding feast, and when he talked about virgins, and when he talked about lost sheep and coins and people, he was talking about heaven. If you want to know where heaven is, look around. If you want to know where hell is, look around. You don't have to wait until you die. And you don't have to wonder what it is like. Ask someone who has been raped. Ask someone who has been cherished. Ask someone who has been bludgeoned by New Testament Law. Ask someone who has had their bills paid by someone who cared.

It's pretty easy to figure it out really. When God reveals himself somehow - whether through nature or by Jesus' words or whatever - everything that embraces him is in heaven, and everythying that refuses him is in hell. All the talk about judgment is just another way of saying that someday God will get to the end of his rope for letting the masquerade go on, and then everyone will be seen for who they are and for what they've been doing. The notion that sinners will be judged and Christians get off with their "get out of jail free" card is hogwash. Everything will be revealed.

I am certainly not convinced that Jesus promised that everyone who believes in him will go to a place called heaven when they die, where there are bizarre hybrid creatures and stuff made of gold and precious jewels.

I am certainly not convinced that Jesus promised that everyone who rejects him will go to a place called hell when they die, where there is pain and torture for a hundred years, a thousand years, a trillion years like the guy said on the radio today.

What I am convinced of is that Jesus lived in a certain way, a way he called heaven, or the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, or simply God. He lived it in wherever he was before Abraham was born, and he lived it when he was on earth, and he's living it now.

Heaven is the way things really are, not a place to go when you're done here. Hell is the way things become when you have a better idea than heaven.