(Jude 1:6 NASB) - Ice Cream and Fire

(Jude 1:6 NASB) "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,"

As a young child I remember once listening to our pastor talk about what awaited all of us after death. He said there would be two ultimate destinations for all of our souls.............heaven and hell.

He spoke of heaven in terms that created in me an image of perfection. Of course, as a child perfection was generally defined in terms that appealed to my interests then. The neatest thing I remember daydreaming about was how I would be able to fly up there without wings..............without sitting in an airplane...........fly to where I wanted.....lay back on clouds, etc.

I'd also have access to everything I wanted to eat..............ice cream.............soda pop.........pizza. All I'd have to do was wish for it, and an angel, I presume, would provide it.

When my pastor spoke of hell, however, I knew fairly quickly that wasn't a place I'd like to be. Hell in my child's mind was the absence of everything available to me in heaven..............with a never-ending fire thrown in...........and presided over by an angel who definitely had an attitude problem.............and the scariest part was that hell would last forever.

I knew then where *I* wanted to go, but I didn't quite know the way to get there.

A bit later in life, I came to the Lord, and the path to heaven became very clear...........it was through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. He was the only way to heaven and to eternal salvation.

These days when I dwell on what heaven will be like, what truly excites me is the thought that I will be there to face my Lord in all His Glory.............for eternity. That in itself is enough to make me want to go there............to feel again the communion that man once felt with God.

I don't think much about the other place these days because it's not on my itinerary. But I want to reach out to as many as I can who don't know of salvation to tell them there is something beyond this life to set their sites on..........and the only way to this special place is through Jesus Christ.

Love in Jesus,

Jim

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"But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." (1 Corinthians 12:18 NASB)

"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission."

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This devotional was originally posted on CCI-Devo - Daily Group Devotionals on September 23, 2004 in post #654. It was written by Jim Ross, a former United Pentecostal Church member, who attends Christian Challenge International, the sponsor of the devotional group. The devotional is the copyright of Jim Ross and is reprinted on this site by permission.

Page added July 30, 2005

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