"... there is rejoicing in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Luke 15:10
Most people want to make it into heaven, but most do
not know what the Bible says about how to get right
with God and end up in heaven.
Do you know where you will spend eternity? Are you
going to make it into heaven or is there a chance you
might end up in hell?
God smiles on us when we want to learn about
Him and His ways.
God loves us, has compassion for our struggles and
wants heaven filled with people! But ignoring Him is not a good idea.
Many people have their own beliefs about God and how
to get right with Him. God doesn't change His ways to
conform to our beliefs any more than adults
conform to a child's beliefs.
Assumptions and wishful thinking are among the worst
ways to conclude anything about anyone, especially
God. We need to learn what God says about Himself,
and us,
because the most important future event for every soul is
accountability to God.
It would be good to now pray this short prayer: Father in
Heaven, please give me
understanding to learn the truth about You and Your
ways. In Jesus' name, thank You.
All
religions tell us if we do good things then there is a
fair chance we
could
make it into heaven.
But none of the religions can tell us how much good is
good enough. We just have to wait until it is all over
to find out if we succeeded or not. But once we leave our
bodies, it's too late to come back and change
anything we have done or not done. God knows our eternity is such an important
matter for us that He made a simple way for anyone to
be confident they are going to end up in
heaven.
God wants relationship instead of religion. Of course
God commands us to do good things.
But the following Bible verse makes it clear that
salvation from our sins is not earned by doing good deeds, but is a free gift of
God:
Ephesians 2:8-9
For
it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no
one can boast.
Another obstacle for trying to make it into heaven,
by doing good deeds, is that
no amount of good deeds can remove the bad deeds (sin)
already on our record. We all are guilty of sin. And God
knows all our sins:
Matthew 10:26 "... for there is nothing concealed
that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be
known."
What does sin produce?
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death
[hell]; but the free gift of God is eternal life through
Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is
unwise to not fear that we will be held accountable for our sins or that
they are small in comparison to the sins of
criminals who make the news.
In this age of political
correctness and moral relativism, God has not changed. People are not God's
standard for righteousness ... Jesus is.
Our Universal Dilemma
We don't need to go too far down the list of the Ten
Commandments to learn we all are guilty of sin. For
example: You shall not steal. You shall not lie. You
shall not commit adultery/fornication or whatever our deepest/darkest sin is.
Our sin separates us from our Holy Creator. Lying to
ourselves about our innocence is self defeating. The
time to get right with God is now. He is watching to
see if you accept Him or ignore Him.
If someone has the
cure for cancer and keeps it to themself, the world
would call them cruel. But humanity has a greater and
more universal problem than cancer. It is sin. Sin is
what keeps us eternal beings out of God's sinless heaven and condemns
us to sinful hell. And Jesus warned us that more
people are ending up in
hell than heaven:
Matthew 7:13-14
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is
wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction
[hell], and there are many who enter through it.
For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads
to life [heaven], and there are few who find
it."
The Keys for Eternal Life!
Unlike cancer,
the cure for sin is accessible to all and is free!
Most people already know these three very important
facts:
1. Jesus died
on the cross for our sins.
2. Jesus shed
much blood when He was crucified.
3. Jesus
suffered this very painful death voluntarily for us. He did
not have to do this for Himself. He is sinless.
Jesus paid the ultimate price for our
sins because we are unable to pay the penalty. If we could
make it into heaven on our own by doing good things or
by some religious exercises, then Jesus would have
been a fool …
He would have suffered voluntarily for nothing.
But Jesus is no fool! He paid the greatest price anyone paid for
anything and that is for our souls so we could make it
into heaven!
I hope you can understand why God is
angry
at those
who ignore this most costly and precious gift that He is offering to us for
free. (Think of how you would feel toward
someone
who rejects/ignores the most precious thing you could give.)
The Good News!
Romans 10:9-13 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord,
and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a
person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with
the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 For
the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not
be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of
all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him;
13 for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
will be saved.”
The significance of
the blood of Jesus
The Bible tells us the blood of Jesus washes our
sins away. This is kind of like a delete key erasing the record in
computer file. This means when we (true Christ followers) are
called up to give account at the
Great White Throne
Judgment, our record will have no sin on it
because the blood of Jesus washed it off!
I hope you can
understand
the magnitude of this.
Hebrews 13:12 And so Jesus also suffered ... to
make the people holy through his own blood.
Revelation 1:5 And
from Jesus Christ, … Him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood,
Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Also
1 John 1:7
John 3:36 The one who believes in the Son has
eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son
will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on
him.
I hope your eternal life is worth enough for you to pray the following prayer with deep sincerity. If you
do, you too can have the confidence that you are in right standing
with your Creator and will make it into heaven.
1 John 5:13 These things I
have written to you who believe in the name of the Son
of God, so that you may know that you have eternal
life.
Prayer to get right
with God
Dear Father in heaven, I
confess that I am a sinner and my sins have separated
us. I want to be in a right relationship with You. I ask You to
help me remember my sins so that I may repent of them
and come clean. I sincerely repent of my sins and ask
for Your mercy to forgive me of my sins. I accept
Jesus' crucifixion, His shed blood and rising from the
dead as
His payment for my sins. I ask for Your Holy
Spirit to come into my heart to guide my thoughts and
actions and to help me stay away from my sinful ways. Thank You in the name of
my Savior and Lord, Jesus
Christ, Amen.
"... there is rejoicing in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Luke 15:10
What now?
Learn more
from the
Next
Steps page.
Feel
free to call
or
e_mail
me with whatever questions or doubts you may
have. I also eagerly
accept prayer requests.
Video of this Message
With the love of Jesus Christ,
