A na-ahazi ihe ahụ n'okpuru isiokwu a sara mbara:

Pịa ebe a ka ịlaghachi n'ọkụ mmụọ iji merie ma ọ bụ eluigwe ịkwụ ụgwọ, ma ọ bụ na nke ọ bụla n'ime isiokwu ndị dị n'okpuru:

• Gịnị mere Chineke ji Sisie ike?

  These days, so much is said about Jesus’ love and forgiveness that we often get the idea that He has a more liberal attitude towards sin than God had in the past. Mana, in fact, his standards are really much tougher.

  If Jesus warns us of a possible fate worse than death, then we have to ask, “Why is God such a perfectionist?” Why couldn’t He just create a world in which we all love each other – or eliminate evil without eliminating those who caused it? Surely most people aren’t that bad? And couldn’t the really bad ones just be painlessly terminated? Has Jesus’ teaching been overstated, or have we seriously misunderstood the severity of the situation?

• Agaghị ekwe omume nke ịhụnanya mmanye

  No English word has ever been more dangerously devalued than ‘love.’ There are many kinds of behaviour or feelings that we call ‘love’; and the Greek language uses several different words to distinguish them. But the true love that God desires is where people choose to put the needs of others before their own. Its ultimate enemy is not hatred: but self-centredness and indifference. Without this kind of love, heaven cannot be heaven.

  But there are 2 major problems. How can it be enforced? If there is an enforcer, how does he avoid acting out of self interest? And how can a person act out of love unless they are free to choose not to?

• Ihe ọjọọ gburugburu

  Men have always longed for a truly just society. Ma, despite incredible intellectual and technological advances, civilizations still rise only to crumble into chaos. And it’s the same in our own lives. So what is the underlying problem? Self-centred evil, like a gravitational black hole, has a kind of attraction for us; so that, little by little, we begin to tolerate and excuse it; and then defend it, okwukwu, “That’s just the way I am.”

  As a tree grows, its branches harden; so it always carries the marks of its past. The same is true of us; we become what we choose. Jesus was constantly challenging his hearers to make choices. By choosing our way instead of God’s, our natures become distorted. Evil’s corrosive influence makes us unfit for heaven, and controls us to the extent that our very best efforts leave us unable to break free of it.

  Your own experience of the depths this can take you to may be more or less severe than mine. But we all face a death sentence from this spiritual killer disease. None of us reading this can claim that it has not been the product of our own choices. Na, in spite of any temporary self-improvement efforts we make, ultimately things will only get worse – unless God himself intervenes.

  Can there be a point of no return? Possibly: but one vital choice normally remains, for those who are willing …

Gụọ na …