Human beings tend to be very myopic. They only see what is right in front of them, right now. This is especially true of the young, but it affects us all at any age. And that’s OK for living life most of the time, especially while driving! But when you start thinking that way spiritually it can create a lot of problems for you. Evangelicals founded most of their theology around that the world would end soon, and that the lost who die that way go to eternal conscious torment in hell. This has driven all of their theology. But if we are honest, it’s very short sighted. How arrogant to think that only Christians of the past maybe 150 years have known correct theology! It is short-sighted and selfish. There have been billions of people who lived and died since the dawn of human history. Ninety nine percent of them never heard of Jesus or the Bible. Not remotely. Do your really think that Papa would cast all those billions into the fires of hell just because they were born at the wrong place and time? No? Only if they have heard the gospel and rejected it? So we have to urgently preach to all the world so Jesus can return? Well, only 0.0000001% of people who ever lived have “heard the gospel”. Most of those have already lived and died. It’s an impossible task. It’s just an absurd doctrine.

Imagine you are in ancient Egypt before the Hebrew slave period. You were born to farmer parents who worked on a small farm as tenant-farmers. (These farmed the land and paid rent to the landowner in the form of a percent of the harvest.) You never learned to read. All you knew of religion were maybe the myths you were told by your parents. You accepted it because you knew nothing else. As a child you spent your days naked, running around playing. You grew and when you were able you were sent to work the fields with your parents. You worked from dawn to dusk every day. When you were sexually mature ( 11 or 12) you maybe were given a young girl as a wife. She bore you children. There were no opportunities, except to volunteer to serve in Pharaoh’s army if you were big and strong enough. If you survived long enough you could earn your freedom. But you would probably be killed before that ever happened. So you keep working. You get older. You get to the point you can no longer work. You spend your remaining days in your children’s house, who are also working like you did. If you created any art, it would be lost when you died. Then at about 45 or 50 years old the years take their toll and you pass away. Since you are not royalty or well off they just wrap you in cheap linen and bury you in the desert, hoping the dryness mummifies you enough so you have a body in the afterlife. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever gets better. Generations pass and nothing ever changes. In 50 years you are completely forgotten. Now, 3,500 years later it’s like you never existed. Do you honestly think our loving, wonderful God never knew that person because they never repented and accepted Jesus into their hearts? Do you think that precious person was forgotten by Papa? Were they worth so much less than you are? Is this generation the only one that matters? Have they been writhing in the flames all these thousands of years? Of course not. That peasant is in the arms of Jesus. I am 100% convinced.

Folks we have to think bigger than our little church in our little theological stream in our little lifespan. We must admit that it’s much bigger than our tiny brains can fathom unless we have the mind of Christ. When there’s a choice between an understanding of scripture that favors grace and inclusion as opposed to judgment and exclusion, we must favor grace and inclusion. Why does it seem to say both? Honestly I do not know. But I do know that Jesus is the final revelation of the Father. I know that love overcomes evil. I know that God is good. I know that God knew every human being that ever lived from before the foundation of the world. I know that Jesus died for all people who ever lived or would live. I know that sin was cancelled at the cross. I know that in God’s mind judgment is when all have come into relationship with Him.

Think bigger, bigger than you can imagine. It really will all be glorious. There is no fear in love. God is really better than your best thought.