Why My Own Salvation Is Not Enough

The Bible says that everyone who does not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is going to hell. Now me accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior may solve that problem for me; but I care about many other people besides myself. I know many people who did not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who were wonderful people. My grandmother was one. Michelle was one. My former wife and my daughter are ones. Me accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior will not begin to allay my concerns.

If this is the case, then I have the responsibility to preach Christ to as many people as I can. But once again, I know many good people who died without knowing Jesus. So what am I to do?

So I get intuitions telling me that unless I do 10,000 pushups I am causing a war, or that if I go on the Internet to compose my book I am causing a super-volcano eruption. Where do these intuitions come from? I cannot simply dismiss them. I look at the clock and I see numbers such as 2:22. What is the rightful thing here for me to be doing?

I do not want the Revelations scenario for two reasons. One is that it means that most people will go to hell, which I most certainly do not want to see happen. The other is that it means that the world would be destroyed, which I likewise do not want to see happen. For me to simply accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior without doing anything about either problem is not satisfactory to me. If either thing were to happen, I would not be able to forgive myself and would go to hell on my own volition.

So there are people who say that what I am doing is a delusion. It may very well be a delusion; however I cannot take these kinds of risks. I cannot allow myself to be responsible for a disaster scenario or an apocalyptic scenario. I cannot allow myself to be responsible for people I've loved going to hell, or for that matter for anyone else going to hell. I would not wish an eternity of hellfire on anyone, not even Hitler. Clearly there are people who need to suffer the consequences of their actions; but I do not see an eternity of hellfire as a fitting punishment for just about anything.

As for our planet, I see no reason at all why beautiful and innocent plants and animals should bear the burden of our wrongdoing, and I likewise do not want to see it destroyed.

Should Judas or Herod or Caiaphas be in hell? I do not think even that. Jesus only was dead for three days and then resurrected, which means that attempting to kill him was a wasted effort. He triumphed over death. He resurrected. The 100 million Native Americans who were killed by Spanish and English colonials did not.

Which means that the people who attack Jews for trying to kill Jesus have much greater and much more recent crimes in their history, and if sins of fathers really are visited upon the sons then the descendants of all these Spanish and English colonials should suffer.

And yet I do not want to see even that.

So right now I do not know what is the correct course of action. Once again, me accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior may serve my selfish purposes, but it would do nothing for anyone else. And I care about many people and things besides myself. Which means that I have an obligation to do what I can toward the effect of saving them, even if I myself am saved.