Daily Devotional Details

Date

“What does it profit a man if he… loses or forfeits himself?” Luke 9:25

Imagine passing into eternity like this—without faith, hope, or love.

Imagine spending eternity without the capacity of faith. All you can perceive is the darkness around you, nothing beyond that.

Imagine spending eternity without the capacity of hope. Without faith, you find yourself alienated from God and without any possibility of a change in your situation. There is no light on the horizon—no prospect of change.

Imagine spending eternity without the capacity of love. C. S. Lewis described hell as “people without relationship.” Nobody can find it in their heart to care about you, and you cannot find it in your heart to care about anybody else.

Hell is having no faith, hope, or love. That’s the ultimate condition of someone who has lost his or her soul. But how do people lose their soul?

J. C. Ryle says in his book, Old Paths, that we can lose our soul in three broad ways:

You may murder your soul by running into open sin and serving lusts and pleasures…

You may poison your own soul by taking up some false religion. You may drug it with traditions of man’s invention, and a round of ceremonies and observances which never came down from heaven. You may lull it to sleep with opiates which stupefy the conscience, but do not heal the heart…

You may starve your soul to death by trifling and indecision. You may idle through life with a name upon a baptismal register, but not inscribed in the Lamb’s Book of Life—with a form of godliness, but without the power…

Is it a greater danger for you to murder, poison, or starve your soul? Why?