Tim’s question or my first answer have little to do with universal salvation or soteriology; in fact it has very little to do with theology. The question is really meant to bring to light our attitude towards God, others and our faith. Why are we Christians? What is Christianity all about? Have we been scared into being Christians and live our lives in such manner?

You see, my instinctive answer was nothing more than a manifestation of how I see the Church and how I view Christianity today. Somewhere along the way someone twisted a beautiful story about a loving and compassionate Creator into a story of fear, hate and punishment. To sum up modern Christianity I could simply say, we are all sinners, and God is out to get us! Therefore we all get caught up in a vicious circle of self-denial and self-righteousness, a life of never-ending self-hate that would never or rarely allow us to consider the fact that our sin is fully covered and forgotten, and would continuously give us the illussion that we actually have some part in gaining acceptance and love from the Creator.

This kind of twisted Christianity creates a picture of a twisted God, a Creator that cares little about his creation, and cares a lot about retribution and punishment. Millions upon millions of Christians have lived their lives for the past two thousand years solely focused on how to avoid going to a place called Hell after their bodies expire. Sermons about fiery lakes, eternal tormenting demons, screams and suffering have been literally scaring the hell out of people. The message simply does not seem to work; if it did, everyone on Earth would be a believer in a ruthless, retributive God that is out to get us for each and every one of our mistakes in order to satisfy his wrath and keep the payment balance equal and fair.

But this is not the God I have come to know. The God of the Bible is a compassionate God, a God of forgiveness, deliverance and renewal. His message to humanity is not a message of wrath and eternal torment, but a message of eternal love. In fact, the Scripture is God’s love letter to mankind, a letter reminding us that God is always after us, not to send us to Hell, but to embrace us and take us back home.

In Luke 4 we read the story of Jesus going to the synagogue in Nazareth and reading Isaiah 61:

“God's Spirit is on me; he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, "This is God's year to act!"”

After reading this passage he proclaimed “You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.”

It is evident from the Scripture that the chief concern of Jesus, and his most important mission was to bring about the Kingdom of God, which apparently involved good news to the poor, prisoners and those burdened and battered. Even in the higher spiritual sense of this passage, those poor, blind and burdened would be those trapped in sin, enslaved and imprisoned by their sin and shortcomings, blinded by fear and by the Law. God had to act, not because he hates us and wants to give us what we deserve, but because he is compassionate, he cares about the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the burdened and the battered. It was God’s time to act and do something about it! The action is for the benefit of mankind, not for its destruction, punishment or demise!

Jesus brought about the Kingdom of God accompanied with a message of love, not fear. In Luke 18 we read about a young and wealthy ruler coming to ask Jesus about eternal life, and Jesus casually replies, telling him to obey the law and the commandments. “All these things I have kept from my youth,” said the young ruler, and Jesus responds “Sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” The young man found it very difficult to do this because he was extremely wealthy yet Jesus does not reject him! Instead of rebuking him and telling him he is “lost,” Jesus says “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Even the disciples and those around were amazed and asked, “Then who can be saved?”

It is evident that the same mentality of spiritual impotence and desperation that permeates today’s Christianity was alive and well back then. Still, Jesus answered “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.”

The young man had it all; he was extremely wealthy and powerful. He fully obeyed the Law and kept his life in order yet he longed for something higher, something bigger for himself; and so did Jesus. Fear, regulations and legalism produce the same, and it leaves us all longing for something more, something bigger, and that is love of others and love of God (give all you have to the poor and follow me).

In fact, this kind of “new way of thinking” is what the Kingdom of God is all about; the Kingdom has never been about pie-in-the-sky when we die, or “going to heaven after we die.” The Kingdom is rather about renewing our minds, thinking in a new way, a new world, a New Jerusalem, a New Creation, not of this world, but of God. The Kingdom is the simple message of Isaiah 61 repeated by Jesus himself: good news to the poor, pardon for prisoners, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed. And when fear rather than love seeps into our faith because of sin, doubt and hypocrisy, God is there to answer: The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.

Is your faith motivated by fear or love? Why are you a Christians? What keeps you going? And depending on what motivates you, how effective is your faith at renewing your mind and your spirit and transforming you into a new creation? God longs after you, his love is written all over your heart, all over creation and all over the Scriptures, and even when you think you are all alone with your sin, desperate to find meaning to your life and reason for all the pain and suffering, He is still right behind you, chasing after you because he loves you no less than his own Son.