The purpose of life in Christianity

Red Sky at Morning

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self-reflection is not worthwhile?
If I find myself to be less altruistic and self sacrificing than Jesus, I have perhaps realised that I am not a full reflection of God’s love.

When someone who doesn’t believe in Hell asks someone who does if they would face it for another, it is an odd question indeed.
 

Lisa

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I'm not missing the point. I'm the one who posed the question LOL
The point of the answers...you cannot have the answer your looking for in that question. Although it seems to be a great hypothetical in which to expose us Christians..it’s just not feasible as a hypothetical because of the nature of salvation.
 

Todd

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It's an imaginary scenario. A hypothetical. It's meant for self-reflection, nothing more. You're trying to make it theological and missing the point.
Yes I hope that I would be willing to exchange my life for another, if it were possible. John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Of course as humans we would all struggle to some degree with the internal conflict between our survival instinct and our desire to be noble and unselfish. It's the same struggle that Jesus himself overcame while praying in the garden of Gethsemane, the night of his crucifixion.

My wife and I have made Matthew 25:34-40 the mission statement of our home. So if what you are asking were hypothethically possible I would hope that I would do as Jesus did and be willing to lay my life down for another.

Matthew 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
 
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Yes I hope that I would be willing to exchange my life for another, if it were possible. John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Of course as humans we would all struggle to some degree with the internal conflict between our survival instinct and our desire to be noble and unselfish. It's the same struggle that Jesus himself overcame while praying in the garden of Gethsemane, the night of his crucifixion.

My wife and I have made Matthew 25:34-40 the mission statement of our home. So if what you are asking were hypothethically possible I would hope that I would do as Jesus did and be willing to lay my life down for another.

Matthew 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
you bear good fruit
 
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Would you still give up your spot if the person who took it wasn’t grateful or touched by your offer?
Yes, because it's not selfishly conditional on receiving gratitude or even acknowledgment in return. If I expected gratitude why would I give up my spot in the first place?
 

Red Sky at Morning

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It means I would give up my spot to someone else, and be emotionally touched by the very offer.
I think this observation is very apt in the difficulty a born again person has in contemplating entering Hell...

“All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste'
'It seems big enough when you're in it, Sir.'
'And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific is only a molecule'
'I see,' said I at last. 'She couldn't fit into Hell.”

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
 

Wigi

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Would you still give up your spot if the person who took it wasn’t grateful or touched by your offer?
It's even worse if someone refuses your gift and say stuff like 'you do this to be a saint' or 'i'll take your gift and offer it to someone else since you did it to your God'

Never underestimate people's malevolence.
 
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It's even worse if someone refuses your gift and say stuff like 'you do this to be a saint'
There is an easy solution to this: Just give them the gift anonymously. I paid for someone's lunch the other day and walked out the door before they even knew it.
 
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