Journey with us as we grapple with the profound mysteries of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Father Stephen provides an enlightening perspective on these eschatological themes.
Literature and Christian teachings intersect as we navigate the rich tapestry of eschatology, with insights from C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce" illustrating the eternal consequences of moral choices. Father Sanchez leads us through varied eschatological views, from the cosmic to the apocalyptic, and their significance for our daily lives. We weave scripture and the Catholic Catechism into our conversation, drawing a line from the Gospels to our modern existence, and stressing the unbreakable link between our actions today and our final destiny. This episode doesn't just explore doctrinal concepts; it challenges us to live with a purpose guided by the foresight of eternity.
In the quietude of prayer, there lies the potential for immense spiritual growth, as testified by saints like Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross. This episode delves into the theme of spiritual 'capacity for,' where Father Sanchez shares the transformative power of self-awareness and openness to the Holy Spirit's influence on our hearts. Our dialogue culminates in the call to love as the ultimate motivator for serving and expanding our capacity to engage with the divine. We leave you inspired to carry the essence of our exchange into your communities, enriching your faith, and nurturing connections with an eternal perspective. Join us in this episode for an experience that promises to deepen your spiritual life and understanding of Christianity's ultimate truths.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Journey with us as we grapple with the profound mysteries of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Father Stephen provides an enlightening perspective on these eschatological themes.
Literature and Christian teachings intersect as we navigate the rich tapestry of eschatology, with insights from C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce" illustrating the eternal consequences of moral choices. Father Sanchez leads us through varied eschatological views, from the cosmic to the apocalyptic, and their significance for our daily lives. We weave scripture and the Catholic Catechism into our conversation, drawing a line from the Gospels to our modern existence, and stressing the unbreakable link between our actions today and our final destiny. This episode doesn't just explore doctrinal concepts; it challenges us to live with a purpose guided by the foresight of eternity.
In the quietude of prayer, there lies the potential for immense spiritual growth, as testified by saints like Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross. This episode delves into the theme of spiritual 'capacity for,' where Father Sanchez shares the transformative power of self-awareness and openness to the Holy Spirit's influence on our hearts. Our dialogue culminates in the call to love as the ultimate motivator for serving and expanding our capacity to engage with the divine. We leave you inspired to carry the essence of our exchange into your communities, enriching your faith, and nurturing connections with an eternal perspective. Join us in this episode for an experience that promises to deepen your spiritual life and understanding of Christianity's ultimate truths.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the my Friend the Friar podcast and thanks for listening. If you like my Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us. If you haven't already done so, and if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my Friend the Friar. Father Steven Sanchez. A disc house to carmelite priest. Good morning Father.
Speaker 2:
Good morning.
Speaker 1:
We had a near miss tornado, or well, did we find out if it was a tornado or not?
Speaker 2:
They haven't. They haven't. It hasn't been reported yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so the castle out in Arkansas near miss. Some tree damage, I guess, but nothing.
Speaker 2:
Trees are down, power lines are down behind the monastery, so a lot of trees on the backside of Sardis Road, which is right on the. It would be on the west side of the property, the property line.
Speaker 1:
And man, it's. If you think it's expensive, when your house gets messed up during a storm, imagine replacing like 100 year old maple floors when pipes break or something like that in a monastery. Oh, thank goodness.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, Come Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1:
Speaking of Jesus. Yes, speaking of Jesus, we're okay. So lots of people find this interesting and curious because it's the final judgment, the four last things. It's this kind of vague. Well, I think in a lot of people's minds it's this very vague, weird, like something that's going to happen someday. But it doesn't really matter to me right now, because everyone thinks that they're not going to die today, yeah, or that the end of the world isn't going to happen right now. Man, dad, make a good episode if the end of the world was happening at the same time.
Speaker 1:
People would be tuning in from heaven, I guess.
Speaker 2:
I guess they would know it all. They'll be sharing in God's wisdom, so yeah, they would hear it. They would know it all in their hearts.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, anyway, so yeah. So why are we talking about it? Did somebody request?
Speaker 2:
this. No, no, no, no, because when we, in one of the many episodes on the Advent series we had talked about the Eschaton, and we did to do something on the Eschaton and the four last things. Yeah, this is one of those.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, this is one of those.
Speaker 2:
Let's write that down and then we get that we wrote it down thing. Yeah, okay, we actually wrote this one down, we actually got to it.
Speaker 1:
That's funny, and is this? I know you said Advent, but does any of this apply necessarily to Lent, because Lent is right around the corner for us while we're recording this.
Speaker 2:
More liturgically speaking, it's more during the last week of ordinary time when we celebrate we're getting to the end of the liturgical year when we celebrate Jesus Christ, king of the Universe. Or you know, jesus, what is it?
Speaker 2:
Christ, the King, right Is the other appellation, the other name we have. Usually, like the last two weeks of ordinary time and the first two weeks of Advent, deals with the last things, deals with the coming of Jesus, the kingdom, the separating of the sheep and the goats and those sorts of things and all those spiritual references to the end of time, and so mostly has to do with the Advent season or the last week of ordinary time, and the first couple of weeks of Advent is when this theme comes up. It should be part of, you know, our, our Considerations, right Consideration in terms of the fact that we all are, we are mortal and that we must eventually stand before God and give an accounting for the new life that has been given to us. And that's basically what the eschaton, or the four last things, is about. Is that truth right Of our mortality?
Speaker 1:
And we should be longing for these things right. Because this is hopefully the end of our goodness in our life and more goodness to come.
Speaker 2:
In the book of the Apocalypse or the book of Revelation, which are our title, you use the last verses. The Spirit and the Bride say come, you know, sort of like come where, jesus. Yeah, we're waiting. We need you to come and heal definitively all of creation.
Speaker 1:
And we've got a good episode about that book as well. People can check it out. Yes, All right, take it away, father.
Speaker 2:
So, first, going back to the Creed and there's those episodes we have on the Creed as well, the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. So, quoting from the Creed, part of the Creed that we recite is that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end, right. And there's another section that says we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, amen. So those are parts of our creeds that we recite on Sundays or solemnities, but very seldom do we ever actually spend time thinking about what that really means. So, as we said earlier, during our Advent episodes last year and this year, we did bring up this idea of the eschatological element of the celebration of Advent, and that is that not only is Advent a celebration of the incarnation, as celebrated in the Nativity or Christmas, but, keeping the theme of the last week of ordinary time, it is also a preparation for the final coming. So the first part of Advent reminds us that our time here on earth is a time of vigilance, or preparedness for the Lord's coming in glory. Now, this is a constant truth of the Pilgrim Church and we need to be reminded of this continuously, because we tend to forget this that we are Pilgrim disciples journeying towards our fulfillment as persons, as humanity and as creation. We are asked to hold intention the reality of the God man who was born in poverty, humility and who suffered a shameful death, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the reality of the final and full revelation of this same Jesus as the Son of God and King of the universe, who will come again, not in poverty, humility and hiddenness, but openly as King clothed in splendor. And so we look forward to that day when the entire world will, as Zechariah says, look on him, whom they have thrust through.
Speaker 2:
All temporal creation will come to an end, which means that the temporal journey of humanity itself will come to an end, which then we as Catholics believe that humanity, as well as all of creation, will in the end have to face the final judgment. But that is one element of the eschatown that we refer to as the four last things. So now, the four last things. What are the four last things? For us, the four last things are death, particular judgment, and in the end it will be the final judgment at the end of the world. So death, particular judgment, hell and heaven. So those are the four. Of course, these realities should not be understood as the last things in a static way, as much as they should be understood as a transition into our ultimate state as persons, that is, moving towards the fulfillment of being with God in glory.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so it's not like when you die, that's it. It's not like when you, when heaven and earth are I don't know what the word I'm thinking of, but it's not like. It's the end of the sentence with a period. It's the end of a period. Well, it's an end of a time into a next time.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Or in time is maybe the wrong word too if we're thinking about it, but existence yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And when you brought this up at the other the episode that you published the other day, and you spoke of the time according to Jewish understanding, right, and I was thinking like, yeah, that's, we talked about this. This is like the Kronos versus the Kairos kind of understanding of time, right? So within the church, the branch of systematic theology that deals with these last things is known as eschatology, and it's taken from the Greek for ta eskata, which is the last thing. So the Greek for the last things is ta eskata. The Greek name for this study has supplanted the older Latin term, which was de novissimis, which means of the new things, because death, judgment, hell or heaven will be the beginning of our new existence, as you said, the new life, right, that's what we're looking forward to, is that we'll finally be fully with the Lord. Yeah, although that everything that means in terms of our existence as human persons in Christ.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's really kind of neat. Is two ways of looking at it right One's the last things and one's the new things. But it's that transition yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:
So a couple of things. A little bit about eschatologies right, there is what is known as historical eschatology. So in the sacred scriptures, before the Babylonian exile, right, so what's called a pre-exilic, in the pre-exilic tradition of sacred scripture, there was a belief that there would be an end of the present era and the beginning of a new, definitive era in which all the promises made to Israel would be fulfilled. This is the fundamental basis of all eschatology.
Speaker 2:
That history is incomplete until the moment when God's plan exists fully in its human dimension, or, a better way of understanding, that is, when humanity is finally incorporated into the fullness of God's plan for us, right? That'd be another way of saying that. And so, then, part of the problem is that a lot of times, as we've seen, we've spoken of before, is that a lot of times there is secular humanism that tries to build their own heaven on earth, right that we can be totally happy and there is a way of reaching the fullness of happiness here outside of.
Speaker 2:
God's plan right. There's movies that deal with that too, so we can talk about movies too, if you want.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and well, it's not an old concept either. I mean the Tower of Babylon. It's the same kind of thing like we can go and achieve this thing, like we don't have to wait for it to come from God, like we can go to heaven.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, there's always this human tendency to want to complete ourselves, and so there is a misunderstanding or a temptation to want to complete ourselves when we, as disciples and believers in Jesus Christ, as Catholics, we believe that the fullness can only be achieved in Jesus Christ and once we pass into the next life, into the next era.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Well, yeah, and that's any think of any part of your life or aspect of your life, like I want to be healthier, so I'm going to go to the gym, and then I'm never satisfied with no matter. If I've been in the gym for 30 years, doesn't matter, I'm not satisfied, I need more. I need more, I need more. Or I've been working in my career for 30 years and I'm CEO of something, don't matter, I need more. I need more. I need more relationships. I need more. I need more, Because we're always looking for something that can only be satisfied through Jesus, by God yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, all right. I got to ask, though, what's your favorite movie on something like this, you opened the door for it.
Speaker 2:
Now I got to ask Okay, so most recently, probably it would have to be Elysium.
Speaker 1:
I haven't seen it. I saw the it was available on. Like one of the streaming things.
Speaker 2:
You need to see that it's Matt Damon and Jody Foster.
Speaker 1:
Something in space or like a space station or something.
Speaker 2:
Yes, the perfect, heavenly, secular, humanist colony that lives in orbit around the earth and only the poor live on earth. It's a very good movie.
Speaker 1:
It is.
Speaker 2:
It's. Yeah, you should watch that.
Speaker 1:
Elysium. I think Bertha agrees, because she just showed up. What about book?
Speaker 2:
Book that's hard to tell. The book on Probably I would say it's not about heaven, but it's about the end of time and the frustration of humanity is CS Lewis's the Great Divorce, which is a great, great, great book. It's basically about all these people that find themselves in purgatory, and there's also a depiction of hell, where people start moving away from each other. They live in this place but they keep moving away from each other. It's separate, it's being isolated.
Speaker 1:
Hell has been is isolation.
Speaker 2:
So that's a good book to read and consider. So anyway, moving on to now cosmic eschatology, so the entire present cosmic eschatology refers to that the present mode of historical existence will end so that another age will come into existence, the cosmos right, an age in which gods will, gods reign, gods kingdom will be all encompassing. This view is more prevalent than in post-exilic writings of the scripture. So post-exilic, after the exile, you have what they call apocalyptic writings, right, and that's this cosmic eschatology that God is going to recreate all of creation. Then there is individual eschatology, and individual eschatology deals with death, the particular judgment of the soul when the person dies, and then either purgation, heaven and then hell. Collective eschatology deals with the end of the world, which was we're talking about, you know, the final coming of Christ, the resurrection of all that it and the general or final judgment of all of creation. When there is an emphasis or an accent on the imminent end, it's coming now, it's coming soon, kind of. You know those preachers on the street corners right.
Speaker 2:
You know, the end is coming, the end is near. That is referred to as apocalyptic eschatology. It's coming now, the apocalypse is upon us, right? And it tends to stress the difference between this age and the age to come. They tend to emphasize that, stress the difference, right? So a little quote then, from the Catholic Catechism number 524, in which our tradition, all three of these eschatologies are closely related to and are intertwined.
Speaker 2:
So when the church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah. For by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming, or the coming in glory. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, that's John the Baptist, by celebrating the death and martyrdom, the birth and martyrdom of John the Baptist, the church unites herself to his desire. He must increase, he must increase, but I must decrease. And then a quote from the first letter of the Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 26,. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So this is part of our whole theology, right? This?
Speaker 2:
is we're continuously doing this. Every time we celebrate Mass, we remind ourselves that we're waiting for the coming until the Lord comes in glory.
Speaker 1:
And sorry, I have to apologize because Bertha is in super hyperloved mode and she keeps rubbing on everything and I don't have no idea what kind of background noise it's actually making. But if there's a bunch of noise in the background, I apologize. Come on, bertha lay down.
Speaker 2:
It's because she's cold yeah probably. So another quote from the New Catholic Encyclopedia the New Testament unequivocally asserts that the definitive act of judgment both salvation and condemnation has been realized in the passion and resurrection of Jesus, and yet it looks forward to a day when this reality will be made fully manifest in each individual and In the whole cosmos. Okay, so the eschaton has taken place in in Jesus already, right? We're just waiting for the final, definitive revelation of that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's something that's kind of Interest to me. I thought it was kind of interesting when I For, for some reason I had always thought that the story of the Bible and all that kind of kind of stuff I don't know how to say it ended with revelation. But then at some point time, I had this epiphany that oh no, we're, we're in the age of the church, so to speak, like it's still continuing. Yes stories move is still going on. It's and. I'm a part of that story now.
Speaker 2:
Yes, very good, you had a good catechism teacher, yeah, so okay, now a couple of quotes from from the Gospels. Right, so from Matthew, chapter 5, verse 20. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus is teaching that Moral rectitude is a requisite for entrance into the kingdom. He also insists that the future outcome is determined in our stance in regards to him. So in Mark, the gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verse 38, we're told For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation Of him, will the Son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels.
Speaker 2:
Then, at the gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 18 to 21, he who believes in him is not condemned. He who does not believe is Is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God and this is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light. Less, as deeds should be exposed, but he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. Then John's gospel, chapter 5, verse 24. Truly, truly, I say to you here who he who hears my word and believes him, who sent me, has eternal life. He does not come to into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Speaker 2:
Then John's gospel, chapter 12, verse 48 he who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge. The word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. And then we're Taught that it is Jesus himself who will act as judge. So we have two quotes from the Acts of the Apostles. The first is from chapter 10, verse 42, and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. And then from chapter 17, verse 31, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead. Okay, so question in what way will we be judged? So we will be judged according to the stewardship that we have lived. So the judgment is nothing more than a consequence of a progression of decisions that I have made either for or Against.
Speaker 1:
God throughout my life. Yeah, this is, this is similar in this is Similar conceptually, to a lot of other things we've talked about, like excommunication, like you excommunicate yourself, correct? So so this is not. Did I do what I needed to do? Did I check enough boxes to get into heaven, like like a, like it's a test, you know? Did I complete enough to get that 70% or whatever it is, to get in?
Speaker 2:
it's a.
Speaker 1:
It's a consequence of, well, and I guess maybe I'll say it this way Trying to think of like a test as an example as birth, the jumps out of my lap thinking is the teacher doesn't decide if you fail the test. No right, you, you, you know enough content to pass the test on your own.
Speaker 1:
It's all on you right, Right and so this is this thing that we need to keep in mind, because Jesus, he, he doubles down on all this stuff, like it a bunch of different ways, right, like whatever you've done to the least of these you've done to me kind of.
Speaker 2:
Thing.
Speaker 1:
And so we have all these opportunities to be Christlike and we need to be aware of them. Yeah, I don't know how you can get through life without without developing the skill of personal reflection. Some people do, yeah, but well, yeah, they, they do. I guess that's the thing they. They definitely do, but I Don't know how you can think it's appropriate, you know, like that's, that you don't need to think about your actions. I don't know, it's just something that kind of gets to me all the time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, and so, and this goes, you know the whole idea of it's. It's a matter of Making better decisions, and better, more informed decisions. Right, it is about growing into being transformed, it is about conversion. You know, this is what it's about. And so that, in the end, then, the, the cumulation of my life, my life decisions, and is what defines me. So when I come before the judge, the judge just basically Verifies or certifies my being. This is who you are right, this is who you've been.
Speaker 2:
And so this is you come before me as this right and hopefully, as we say, always in mercy. Right, then, his merciful love. He'll take into consideration our capacity, right, and so then, for us as disciples, then, since I have been baptized into the death of the Lord, and I just celebrated our baptism yesterday, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, manny's boy, theo, baptized him yesterday. So, hey, manny, hey Theo, so as to be incorporated into his resurrection. This brings with it an obligation to live out a particular stance in the world. I am called to truly live my life subject to Christ, who suffered and died for me. I am called to continually die to sin and manifest the new creature that I am, the new man that I have become in Jesus Christ, by my participation in his death and resurrection.
Speaker 2:
This means more than fulfilling a list of actions. It calls for a living out of my discipleship in all aspects of my life. It is my fidelity to my status as a steward that will determine the final outcome, and so I am a steward of the life that has been granted to me, that has been given to me as this new creature, as God's child. I am stewarding that, but I'm also stewarding everything else that has been given to me creation, the church, neighbors, right Enemies, right, all those. So you had mentioned earlier that scene from Matthew's gospel. So if you remember the scene from Matthew's gospel when the Lord separates the lambs from the goats, all he's doing is he's merely pronouncing the sentence that the individual himself has brought with him. So it's not like saying, okay, you're a lamb, okay you're a goat. No, he's like, okay, he just separates them as they are because they've come already as who they are and so as part of the whole idea of the judgment is the certification of who.
Speaker 1:
we are right that we bring with us at the end, yeah, so let me ask you a question regarding all of this. You'd said something once upon a time when we started making episodes. The word you use or the phrase you use is my capacity for, and that's always just stuck with me, because you can limit yourself or you can grow yourself in that capacity, or you can ask God to increase your capacity. It's kind of like if I'm asked to give of myself, my time or my effort, right, I might go. Oh, no, I'm tired, I don't want to, right, I might limit, try to limit myself. My capacity for that is I'm capped out, right, mm-hmm. But I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit will always give you more capacity.
Speaker 2:
As long as you ask for it.
Speaker 1:
As long as you ask for it, you're open to it, yeah, cooperating with it and all that, yeah, yeah. So what would be a way, people? How do we increase in our awareness through prayer? How do we increase our capacity through prayer? Because I may think that I do a really good job in whatever ministry I'm a part of at church, but maybe I don't even have the capacity to recognize that I'm really bad at this in my friendships outside of church. You know what I mean. Like, how do I grow in my awareness and my capacity for this specific part?
Speaker 2:
I think both Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross would say that the more you grow in your relationship with the Lord, the deeper your objectivity. You should be objective of yourself, of your journey, really understand where you're at, not where you wish you were or where you wish or where you would want others to think you are, but where you really are. And part of that objectivity then is when we learn to be objective and we recognize our radical poverty. The radical poverty then opens us up to again that self-knowledge, but also the petition to the Father to increase in us those gifts and those capacities Again, the ability to respond, because I recognize that I'm not responding fully or I'm not responding as well as I would like to, and I see that it is sometimes it is my fault in that I have chosen not to be.
Speaker 2:
I might be selfish or self-centered or egotistical, or it might be that the capacity is limited because of my early formation, because of my lack of catechism, lack of education, human development, psychological development, all those things may be things that limit my capacity. So, and again, god takes into account maybe one of those things, the capacity of each individual. But getting back to this whole idea of growth is that the more I understand what it means to be a disciple, the greater my responsibility or my obligation. I don't like to use the word obligation but, We'll stick with it for now.
Speaker 2:
Well, it's like the greater your call right. Right, I have a greater responsibility to respond. And I don't like to use the word responsibility and obligation because it should be out of love.
Speaker 2:
And that's where you grow. The growth is in that all of this becomes an act of love, because you allow yourself to fall in love with the Lord. And by falling in love with the Lord, he begins to dilate your heart. He begins to make you more capable of responding to him, but also more capable than of serving the church and serving those people around you.
Speaker 1:
No, so it's almost, I think, maybe a good way of saying it is the more you know, or the more you grow, the greater the invitation becomes.
Speaker 2:
Right. So, for example, it'd be a matter of developmentally speaking. So you have a third grader right and the third grader their understanding of what it is. You know to do homework, what homework is what, what classwork is right. So you're there in your school and you're really looking forward to mostly recreation time or recess or breaks exactly because you're mostly about.
Speaker 2:
You know, go out and play with your, with your friends and stuff. I mean, that's what it's about. And so school is like you put up with the education part, to be there to hang out with your friends and have fun and you know, whatever right, that's a third grade level and hopefully people grow out of that approach to education so that when they get to let's say they get to high school and college and even doctoral levels, their understanding of education and their capacity is changed.
Speaker 1:
It's the same person.
Speaker 2:
It's the same individual, but the capacity has expanded and changed and so, depending upon their ability to respond to the opportunity that is afforded them, has to do them with the person's own formation and capacity. Now I can be very gifted academically, I can be very gifted and then not try right, like, okay, I'm just going to skate, and if I skate through, you know, I get Cs, maybe Bs, right, and not even trying right and like I don't even have to worry about it, right, but that means that I'm not living up to my capacity, which means I'm actually cheating myself. I'm not cheating the system, I'm cheating me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's like the it's like the steward who buried the talent.
Speaker 2:
Yes, right, he goes. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Like I'm at least not going to lose it for you.
Speaker 2:
Right, Right. So then the same thing happens in our discipleship and our stewardship. If I have a greater understanding of what the stewardship encompasses, if I am in a real relationship with the Lord and by that I mean a relationship of love, not an obligation, not a relationship of obligation or duty or white knuckling that that I'm going to do everything I can to be a steward, not because I'm afraid, but it is because the person that I am in love with has asked this of me and I am responding to his request of me because I love him.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, which is a different way.
Speaker 1:
right yeah, it's a different attitude yeah, and so that's so. This is a good place for us to wrap up this episode. So this is the personal judgment, or particular judgment, and the personal eschatology or individual eschatology. What's?
Speaker 2:
the yeah, yeah, how we, how our journey is going to have an impact on my future once we cross the reality of death. Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And I've heard somebody say and I really like this and I try to live this, I try and teach this to like Sophia is, if you ever become aware of something that you need to grow in and you don't know how to do that, but you have that awareness occur, the best thing you could do is to bring that to prayer and to literally say Lord, I don't know what to, I don't know how to right. Just to be honest about that, I don't know how I want to and I need help kind of thing, and I think God, in his mercy and his love, he will help us.
Speaker 2:
Yes, Definitely, definitely, definitely Okay.
Speaker 1:
Well, let's wrap this up. Everybody, thanks for joining us. Please share the episode with others. All that good and we'll continue. Yeah, we'll see you next time, god bless, god bless, bye.