We are mortal creatures created for eternity — and that should shape how we live. But there’s one uncomfortable truth we have to reckon with first: everybody wants to go to heaven, just not right now. In this episode, we launch a new mini-series on eternity, starting with the one place theology has to begin: God as judge.
We work through why holiness, not love or mercy alone, is the hub that everything else about God’s character flows from — and why judgment isn’t in tension with love but a natural outflow of it. We dig into a real theological disagreement over whether believers face any future judgment at all, or whether that’s settled the moment you’re saved, and what it would mean for your assurance if it weren’t. The episode closes with a story Dr. Abidan Shah has carried his whole life — his own great-grandfather, a devout Muslim, weeping at the words “God has a place for you in heaven,” because in Islam, there is no such guarantee.