What warnings and threats scare us can tell us what we really value. Having the TV taken away from you might not scare you a bit, but the threat of only being allowed a few outfits and restricted from buying any new clothes is deadly serious. The threat of having computer privileges revoked will not curb any sinful tendencies, but to be banned from the Playstation is your functional hell. What is your functional hell? The thing that when threatened causes panic? Is it weight gain, being unfashionable, your reputation, your physique, your intelligence, cash flow, car, losing your job? All these hells pale in comparison to the true hell. And if hell is hell to you, why is it hell to you? If the fires of hell do not terrify you it is because you have what you treasure. One day you will lose it all, all the heavens of this earth, but that will not be the cause of your deepest agony. Hell will be hell not because of the absence of earthly treasures, but because the greatest being in the universe is eternally wrathful in His disposition towards you. The day when you finally see something all glorious and worth giving your all towards will be the day when eternally you are separated from Him, never to enjoy any of the pleasures that are found explicitly and infinitely in Him. Far better your hell to be temporal and heaven eternal, than your heaven to be temporal and your hell eternal. May the true hell terrify you, not the petty hells of this earth. And in the midst of the hells of this earth, if you are Christ’s, rejoice, heaven is yours, great is your reward.
The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there? – John Piper
No Other Boast 