wendy francisco sozo

Recently some one told us on the phone, "You believe everyone is saved, and there is no hell". It's interesting having someone who thinks they know you tell you what you believe. Neither thing is true. The word sozo doesn't mean die and go to heaven like we've translated and taught it. This belief causes so many Christians to trash this life. The word sozo applies to so many things in this life - healing and blessing and backing and rescue. And if you are focused on sozo as something you wait for till after you die, and that you hopefully have or you burn forever, you can't live this life. That's one reason Jesus said so many miss the narrow path of life ...because of dead religion. Sure a flat reading seems to say, if you believe you get saved. But I think a fuller understanding is, if you know God as someone who does not destroy...if you believe the message of the cross, "Forgive them, they know not what they do", you realize there isn't anything to keep you from the life of God, from sozo, now. Today is the day of salvation ...not after you die. Therefore, it might be said that an inclusionist believes far MORE people need to get sozoed because they are caught in dead religion, which has described God as a culler of the flock, a destroyer of those who don't make the grade, and therefore, at the heart of it, these people who call themselves believers are separated and in fear. I am not making this up... many Christians are scared to death of God. If that isn't hell I don't know what is. Which brings us to the second point. Death and hell are both real things that Jesus conquered utterly. But many people still live in hell... on either side of the narrow path. On one side, the torture and abuse of dead religion, on the other side those who have rejected God altogether because of how bad religion is... (and the people on that side of the path are better off than the ones on the other). Dead religion tickles fallen human nature by saying our enemies deserve death. The confrontation of the real gospel, is that it brings life to dead areas and it requires someone to be willing live a life of forgiveness and equality... to make a gigantic shift away from the worst hell and poison on the planet, that the creator is a killer, and that masses of people should suffer forever. This poisons people and creates the need for salvation - deliverance, healing, rescue. I know. I was there. And now I feel like Frodo on the hillside of Mount Doom after the ring was destroyed saying...Sam, I can see the Shire again... Anyway, nobody has the right to tell a person what they believe, and when someone thinks they own you enough to do that, it's time to drop off the key Lee and get yourself free.