Whom God destroys

One of the things our Lord says in today’s Gospel (Matthew 10:26-33) may strike as strange those who have a cartoonish idea of God as revealed in the New Testament.

Be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.

Let us be clear: our Lord is not telling us to fear the devil, our Lord is telling us to fear God.

Yes, our Lord goes on to speak of God’s care and love for us, but that does not contradict our need to fear God (with the loving fear of a child rather than the alienated fear of a slave).

When we sin, when we turn away from God, we dive head-first toward Gehenna.

It is only the love and the mercy of God that holds us back from falling into that eternal destroying.

If we persist in struggling against God, if we keep pushing away from his mercy and truth, then we truly risk slipping from the one power keeping us from everlasting doom.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, be merciful to me – a sinner.