Hell on Earth

"Thy Kingdom Come - Thy Will Be Done, on earth as it is in heaven."

These words of the Lord's prayer prayed frequently by followers of Jesus in many languages around the world will find their fulfillment when Jesus comes back. But they find partial fulfillment in every act of goodness and kindness flowing from the heart of a forgiven, redeemed person.

But if we can bring heaven to earth, we can also bring hell to earth to. In hell, there is disregard for human life. Human beings devolve from individual unique creations of almighty God - each worth dying for - to object of rage or wrath, or to conquer or use.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:27-30, "If your eye causes you to sin pluck it out . . . if your hand causes you to sin cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have your whole body go into hell."

Jesus is talking here about the danger of what happens when we let our view of human beings devolve from God's view to just objects. The end result is hell on earth. That's what we saw on Monday at Va Tech, that's what we saw in the Holocaust of World War 2, and in the ethnic cleansing in Serbia, and in Rwanda, and in the streets of our inner cities in America.

Each individual person was created uniquely by the Creator of all things and even if that person was the only person to ever live, Jesus would have died to redeem that one person. You are that person. Every person you lay eyes on today or tomorrow is that person. We lose sight of that when we hold a grudge, when we despise someone poorer, dirtier, older than us.

How is your interaction with spouse, family, coworkers, neighbors, people on the street demonstrating your understanding of who human beings are to the creator?

May we be all about bringing heaven and hindering hell.
Amen.