The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.

The verses in the Bible are more than good teachings, they possess power.

[God] desires to do more than "help out" a bit. He wants to completely transform us. He wants to take a timid heart and set it ablaze with strength and courage, so much so that people know something supernatural has taken place--life change just as miraculous as fire coming down from heaven.

The Christian life is a process of better understanding what Jesus taught, learning to apply that teaching in our everyday lives, and then teaching others - people directly around us and people on the other side of the globe - to do the same.

God, I want to know what is true. I know I have cravings that sway and distort my ability to reason. You promise that Your Holy Spirit will guide me into all truth. I pray that He will now. I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to be deceived by others or myself. You alone possess all truth, and I want to be on Your side. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear. Give me courage to live and speak what is right no matter the cost. I don't want to believe anything about You that is not true. Amen.

Nothing outside of God and His truth should be sacred to us. And so it is with hell. If hell is some primitive myth left over from conservative tradition, then let's set it on that dusty shelf next to other traditional beliefs that have no basis in Scripture. But if it is true, if the Bible does teach that there is a literal hell awaiting those who don't believe in Jesus, then this reality must change us. It should certainly purge our souls of all complacency.

Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending. What a stunted, insignificant god that would be! If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can. God is so much bigger, so far beyond our time-encased, air/food/sleep-dependent lives.

But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.

‎"Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people he has made?