Carrot or stick
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
When I read this chapter and allow myself to really imagine a perspective of being trapped in hell forever it is a terrifying thought. Maybe I need to think that way more often because I would not even think of acting in a way that would send me to hell if I was truly believing this was my consequence and how devastating it would be----forever.
I mean if you put a glass of something in front of me and said if you drink this you will have unbelievable feelings and powers out of this world for the next 15 minutes and then you will die the choice would be easy. No thank you. But if you put life's daily temptations in front of me, I guess earning lots of money being one of them, I'm not sure I always make the right choices. I don't like to think negatively but maybe I should picture the stick more often since the ultimate carrot apparently does not always drive my actions.
knut
This story always intrigues me. The part of it that I find so foreign and interesting is the fact that the rich man never tries to convince Abraham that he doesn't deserve to be where where he is. In a world where nothing is "my fault", and its always "somebody else's that put me in this position because of their own stupid actions." This guy doesn't try to do that. He doesn't really do anything to try to change his situation. He mostly wants to warn others of what is going to happen to them.
ReplyDeleteI like what you wrote about making it personal. It's really tough to look at life as a sacrifice, to get to paradise in the end game. I don't act according to that mindset either. It's a challenge that we should both take on.
tp