Choosing Christianity to Avoid Hell?

Let me start with the question nobody expects a pastor to answer this way: should you choose Christianity because you don't want to go to hell? Yes. There. I said it.

If somebody told you there is a bridge out ahead, turning the car around because you don't want to plunge into the water is not foolish. It's wisdom. If you smell smoke in your house, getting out because you don't want to burn is not cowardice.

“The problem isn't starting with the fear of hell. The problem is staying there.”

Christianity was never meant to be a lifetime of running from hell. It becomes a life of walking with God. And there is a big difference.

For generations, some preaching made hell the headline and Jesus the footnote. I'm not taking hell out of the Bible. But I'm also not going to take love out of it. John 3:16 does not say God was so angry with the world that He threatened it into believing. It says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son."