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Even as we might agree that our redemption did cause us to miss Hell, the Bible is clear that God sent Jesus to the cross for the Church. That is something fuller and deeper in purpose. I believe that God’s highest purpose in the redemption of humanity was based on the hope that we would allow Him to reproduce His likeness of Jesus in us. The hope was that Jesus would come inside of me, and that I no longer have to live the life of a fool. I take on the personality of another person, which is Christ in me.

Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul emphasized something really powerful. Over 14 times he used these words repeatedly: I, myself, and me. When he uses the word ‘I’ he’s talking about the sum of his individual being, called self. So, when he said, “I have been crucified” He was talking about the ‘I’ of himself. That means, the part that is his selfish, prideful, me and mine, that had to die. To die to a habit of cigarettes, drinking or drugs is wonderful!  But, what keeps us prisoners, oftentimes, is that it’s easy to get rid of something that’s hurting you. But, I still have to deal with the ‘me’. The god of me is bigger than the God of creation, because the will of man can say no to God anytime he wants. The trees, flowers, and animals can’t do that! But, you and I, because we are creatures made with a will, can say to God, “No! I don’t want to do what you want me to do in my life.” So, that ‘me, mine and I’ is the part that God wants to crucify so that the fool will die with it.

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