Comfort and Easy Are Not What He Promises

Long title there I know, but hits the nail on the head for me. I hope someday i get to meet Martin Luther in heaven, so I can share with him the struggle I have had with self-flagellation like he did. Even though the good part of my mind knows God does not want me to beat myself up in all kinds of ways, I still do it over and over again. Brennan Manning talks alot about how we are living paradoxes most all the time. We can go from seeking the deepest spiritual depth to the lowest sensual depth in a heartbeat, one moment joyful,next moment despairing. Who says the Psalms are not applicable to today???

There is quite a ruckus within evangelical Christianity currently. Response to Brian Mclarens book, * A New Kind of Christianity* indicate this struggle. Brian has been declared total heretic and many more punitive names, while others declare him to open up a new land so to speak where fresh winds of the Spirit blow and stir up new energy and vitality which the Gospel is really all about. Devoted,committed,lovers of God and Jesus are on both sides of this divide, which makes it a rock and a hard place for real. Basic differences in entire approach and understanding of Jesus and His message are being revealed here. Does God save everyone??? Does hell exist??? Can a God who reveals Himself as Love and Who left eternity to become one of us and then die for us, also want to let anyone perish in hell or annihilation???

These are not easy questions and they cannot be handled with simplistic answers. Jesus and the Gospel writers, as well as Paul and Peter, refer to the difference between earthly fathers and our Father God. Would our earthly fathers, assuming they are not psychos or wackos, lol hold a gun to our heads and say *choose me, believe in me and obey me or die endlessly forever and ever*??? These are the wonderings I have been seeking to deal with in my own self as i read the struggle going on amongst believers in the larger christian culture. Universal reconciliation..... is it truly what God wants??? A lot more to ponder about this, but some early thoughts on it all. Let me know what you think, if some of these issues hit home with you.