If you’ve ever cooked much with hot peppers you know that cutting them up with unprotected hands is not a good idea. The heat from the peppers can burn your skin for quite a while after you’ve finished. My mother in law gave me several nice jalapenos to make a batch of hot pepper jelly. The batch of jelly that I made only took about ten of the peppers. I still had a bunch of peppers left. So, I decided to go ahead and chop up the remaining peppers and freeze them for later. All totaled, I ended up cleaning and chopping about 50 or so peppers without wearing gloves.

My first clue to this not being the best idea was that my hands had already started to burn before I finished my task. And the heat steadily increased until my hands were on fire!! I sat around holding an ice pack for about the next six hours. The heat finally went away about as quickly as it came. And I am so thankful!!

This whole experience made me think about the judgment. How awful it would be to be sentenced to an eternity of torment and pain. And to have no hope of anything getting better and no relief…not even from a simple ice pack.

1 Peter 4:17 KJV- For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?