Sometimes I get so tired, but then I remember that His agenda is rushing forward and carrying me with it whether I'm tired or not. There is an inevitable, irresistible movement to the purposes of God. In a sense, I'm just along for the ride. My occasional fatigue may bother me, but it doesn't slow God down one bit. His movement through time and space doesn't depend on me or, for that matter, on you. That, my friend, is good news for both of us.
God always has been and always will be unstoppable. I imagine Him sweeping everything with His broom; nothing is missed. He pushed His broom throughout the past, He is pushing it in the present, and He will continue pushing it forward through the end of what we call time. He sweeps with specific purpose. His sweeping cannot be delayed, side-stepped, misdirected, confused, blunted, slowed down, delayed, detoured, diluted, dammed up, held back, contaminated, avoided, tricked, fooled, or manipulated.
Nothing can talk Him out of His majestic sweeping. Nothing can avoid His broom. He will not stop sweeping until He has fully reconciled His creation back to Himself.
This, then, sums up what I think is the basic reason for His sweeping. He wanted more to love and more to love Him back. To accomplish that, He created humanity, allowed us to choose corruption, then gave us a chance to decide to turn and love Him and be right with Him through a series of very costly choices, both His and ours. For those that choose that path, our love for Him becomes unique and special. That makes our love for Him - especially when it becomes fully mature - different in special ways from the angels' love for Him.
The unique nature of our love for Him will make it possible for Him to love us in unique ways. That is the end to which He is sweeping everything before Him. As I said, He will have more to love and more to love Him back. It will be something unique for both sides, and both sides will be very happy with that result.
Scripture is clear that, in the end, every person who has chosen to remain corrupted, contaminated, unholy, and unloving by rejecting His reconciliation will get the result of those choices: they will be removed permanently from His eternal presence. Even all fallen angels, all classes of them, who chose to become corrupted and contaminated, will be permanently removed from His eternal presence.
He will ultimately and completely and permanently separate the righteous from the unrighteous, the good from the evil, the clean from the contaminated, the loving from the unloving. He will remove that which is not right with Him and keep that which is right with Him. He will rid Himself of everything that aggravates His heart and keep everything that brings Him joy and a super-abundance of love.
Human souls who are not right with Him will experience what Revelation calls "the second death". The second death will be the fate of those who fail the final judgement. The second death will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.
To bypass the second death, you must choose to get right with Him on His terms...exclusively and completely on His terms. You must choose to die to yourself, become helplessly dependent upon His rescue, and love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. There's no wiggle room.
Your fate is your choice. I think that all of humanity is in some way given the chance to choose whether to be right with Him. I don't know everything about how that works (and more than a few theologians would say that's not how it works), but I think it is true. Those who choose to be transformed and made right with Him do so through the sacrifice and Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and King of Kings. He is the only way for the unclean to become clean and the unloving to become loving (as He defines "agape" love, of course). He is the only way for us to be rescued.
On the one-hand, salvation through Jesus costs you nothing. On the other hand, salvation through Jesus costs you everything. But always remember: everything you have and are is a piddling price to pay for everything He gives you!
I've included the following passages because what I've written is reflected in them.
Revelation 2:11-18:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. "The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years." Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."
Luke 7:30
But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.
1Corinthians 3:10-15
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Luke 9:23-26
And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
God always has been and always will be unstoppable. I imagine Him sweeping everything with His broom; nothing is missed. He pushed His broom throughout the past, He is pushing it in the present, and He will continue pushing it forward through the end of what we call time. He sweeps with specific purpose. His sweeping cannot be delayed, side-stepped, misdirected, confused, blunted, slowed down, delayed, detoured, diluted, dammed up, held back, contaminated, avoided, tricked, fooled, or manipulated.
Nothing can talk Him out of His majestic sweeping. Nothing can avoid His broom. He will not stop sweeping until He has fully reconciled His creation back to Himself.
For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him (Jesus), and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:19-20)He is pushing everything and every moment in the physical and spiritual realms toward the permanent separation of good from evil, of clean from unclean, of loving from unloving. Nothing is missed. There is not a crumb or bit of dust or anything left behind, whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. There is not even a shadow left behind. The end result will be shared love unlike anything that's been experienced before.
This, then, sums up what I think is the basic reason for His sweeping. He wanted more to love and more to love Him back. To accomplish that, He created humanity, allowed us to choose corruption, then gave us a chance to decide to turn and love Him and be right with Him through a series of very costly choices, both His and ours. For those that choose that path, our love for Him becomes unique and special. That makes our love for Him - especially when it becomes fully mature - different in special ways from the angels' love for Him.
The unique nature of our love for Him will make it possible for Him to love us in unique ways. That is the end to which He is sweeping everything before Him. As I said, He will have more to love and more to love Him back. It will be something unique for both sides, and both sides will be very happy with that result.
Scripture is clear that, in the end, every person who has chosen to remain corrupted, contaminated, unholy, and unloving by rejecting His reconciliation will get the result of those choices: they will be removed permanently from His eternal presence. Even all fallen angels, all classes of them, who chose to become corrupted and contaminated, will be permanently removed from His eternal presence.
He will ultimately and completely and permanently separate the righteous from the unrighteous, the good from the evil, the clean from the contaminated, the loving from the unloving. He will remove that which is not right with Him and keep that which is right with Him. He will rid Himself of everything that aggravates His heart and keep everything that brings Him joy and a super-abundance of love.
Human souls who are not right with Him will experience what Revelation calls "the second death". The second death will be the fate of those who fail the final judgement. The second death will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.
To bypass the second death, you must choose to get right with Him on His terms...exclusively and completely on His terms. You must choose to die to yourself, become helplessly dependent upon His rescue, and love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. There's no wiggle room.
Your fate is your choice. I think that all of humanity is in some way given the chance to choose whether to be right with Him. I don't know everything about how that works (and more than a few theologians would say that's not how it works), but I think it is true. Those who choose to be transformed and made right with Him do so through the sacrifice and Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and King of Kings. He is the only way for the unclean to become clean and the unloving to become loving (as He defines "agape" love, of course). He is the only way for us to be rescued.
On the one-hand, salvation through Jesus costs you nothing. On the other hand, salvation through Jesus costs you everything. But always remember: everything you have and are is a piddling price to pay for everything He gives you!
I've included the following passages because what I've written is reflected in them.
Revelation 2:11-18:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. "The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years." Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."
Luke 7:30
But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.
1Corinthians 3:10-15
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Luke 9:23-26
And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
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