“I don’t want my children to grow up without a father and that weighs on me,” said Huff, “not because I’m necessarily afraid of death—because I truly believe that I will be united with my Lord and Savior—but it’s a grieving of the reality of what could be left behind.”
Huff believes that some of what Ryan feels is a result of maturity and understanding “mortality more broadly, that this world has a lot more to offer than fleeting pleasures.” He contrasted feelings of pleasure and happiness with the deeper experiences of love and fulfillment. And love is embodied in God, who demonstrated ultimate love in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
“What do you think happens when we die?” Ryan asked Huff. “When you think of heaven, what is your imagination? What does your faith tell you?”
“Paul says it is appointed people once to die and then the judgment. So I think, you know, what’s going to happen is we’re going to be judged where we’re going to stand before our creator,” Huff said. At that point, God will either find us to be in sin, or he will see us covered by the blood of Jesus.
It’s not that we believe in Jesus and then live however we want, Huff clarified. “What we do actually does matter,” he said. “We’re not saved by our works, but we’re saved for works.”
Ryan asked Huff what he meant by that. In response, Huff read most of Ephesians 2:1-10, which says:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
“There’s nothing you can do or I can do that is going to placate God,” said Huff. “We’re not going to be able to earn our salvation because, compared to the standard of the holiness of God, it’s always going to fall short.”
There is brokenness not only in the world but also inside us. We are saved by God’s grace, not by our own works, and God’s law is like a mirror that shows us how sinful we are.
