How much of your identity is good? If you wind up going to hell, that aspect will be stripped away, because there, there is no good.
When they were exiled from Heaven, the fallen angels were crushed with the stripping away of the goodness of God, and all beauty, all they had previously known, all stripped away.
Everyone has goodness within them as a key component. Even the seasoned sinner, the person who has gone most of their whole life in a state of mortal sin, has some material within that God can work with. That God would even save somebody on their death bed is amazing. There are even some stories of posthumous salvation with someone who had a Mass prayed for them. Also there is a particular prayer called the Divine Mercy Chaplet that is said could be prayed for a particular person for the intention of their salvation, within an hour of them dying. Other stories indicate that someone got a communication from Jesus as to the mercy on someone’s immortal soul that He was willing to give at the end of their Earthly life when they died. God is truly amazing. It’s super that in His mercy, He has the realm of Purgatory so that someone can eventually get to Heaven after sufficient purification and education on their faulty ways – IF they were lucky enough to have that mercy to not go to hell. Although, it’s better to be a worthy, forgiven Christian than to avoid hell by the skin of your teeth, so to speak.
Jesus was crucified on Calvary between two criminals. One repented, and to him, Jesus said, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.” – From Luke 23:43
How much of your identity is in the negative?
- Some people use profanity, light, mild, or harsh, to project power or to intimidate, or in jest. That would be a negative aspect to weed out. We weed our gardens. It’s established sense.
- Now sometimes emotions get the worst of us with perceived injury or being degraded or insulted. Sometimes you have to live and let live, as they say; to patiently bear things.
- Some people lack very much patience, and are prone to becoming irate. Some people feed on media that provokes negative emotions, and they settle into compulsive patterns. Maybe that appeals to a sense of justice, or a miscalibrated sense of justice. In any case, moderate on the things that provoke the negative reactions. The news gets to anyone in various cases, but always take the high road.
- Avoid malice – malicious thinking or reactions. Some comedy is malicious and you have to move away from that or grow out of it to be a higher-quality thinker.
- Other times we become embittered, or we dwell on the negative due to emotional wounds. Some “self-medicate” in ways that are physically unhealthy, mentally unhealthy, or socially unhealthy ways. Some patterns become vicious cycles.
- Mental illness is a consequence of sin. Various other ailments may be consequences of sin, and some may be remedied through seeking forgiveness by praying to God, and at the end, saying “in Jesus’ name, Amen.” That means that you accept Jesus’ sacrifice for your forgiveness. (Now if you’re as of yet still unsaved, you still need to work on that via a church.)
If you see yourself in any of these examples, be encouraged to work methodically on forward progress. Everybody can fall into a trap of complacency due to a safety mechanism that allows us to bear esteem issues and tolerate ourselves. Setbacks happen. We all have aspects of ourselves that we need to edit. Fortunately, tomorrow is another day and a new chance to make adjustments and new resolutions.