in my morning reading, I slid into a conversation that infrequently occurs. certainly my day-to-day interactions with others do not elicit this topic, and I admit I rarely consider it in my mind.

hell.

I’m slowly swimming my way through Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, a book backed with brilliance. regardless of your love/hate for Piper, he says much we must hear. today I shivered through chapter 16, “We Must Feel the Truth of Hell.” one portion branded my brain:

“I must feel in my heart that all the righteousness in the universe was on the side of God and against me. In the balance of justice, I was lighter than air. I had not one fraction of a right to appeal my sentence of condemnation. My mouth was stopped (Rom. 3:19).”

my mind pictured a teeter-totter, my pathetic self perched on the grounded end, lighter than air - and the righteousness of God, dense as bricks, slamming down on the raised end, pitching me into hell. granted, it’s gruesome. but apart from the blood of Jesus, it’s accurate.

Piper calls for action - remember. not a novel call in the biblical metanarrative, but an oft neglected one when it comes to remembering “that you were at that time separated from Christ…having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).

the reality of darkness intensifies the shimmering light of grace.

after processing this all too briefly, I drove to work and cranked “Clean” by Depeche Mode. truth turns up in the most curious places. undoubtedly, the song rejoices in freedom from drugs, but how wide is the gulf between narcotics and narcissism? these dudes may not claim Christ, but they speak of him.