Your After-Life Dream: HEAVEN
Someday your heart will stop beating. A day will come when you will
no longer casts a shadow in the sun. It could happen just about
anytime
..and you know that.
Whether you believe it or not, after you go from here you only have
two final destinations: a) A forever life of being separated from
God or b) a forever life of being w/ Him, the source of all true
joy and bliss.
You want to be in heaven of course
..Thats your after-life
dream.
Your Hindrance to Heaven: YOU
Why does it seem easy to do bad than to do good? Why does it seem
easy to take revenge than not to? God seem so far away when you
pray? Do you remember the last time you prayed? The Bible is Gods
Word, yet you dont delight in it. Gods commandments seemed a
burden to you. A chain around your neck. An annoying fence around
your freedom. A rain on your parade. A kill-joy in your
party.
You cant control your urges and desires. Every time you see some
titillating scenes on T.V. or in the movie house, you either have
acted it out already in your mind or have planned to do it with
someone you are not married to. Going to church is a drag and a
sleeping pill.
Even words like holiness, Bible, righteousness, godliness
and etc. bore you. Sends your sleeping juices on the
automatic.
Maybe you have heard of someone who died in their sleep, you
realized your own mortality, you got scared of death, so you
started doing good, you started reforming your ways but after some
time the feelings wore off and your back again to your old self.
You tried to be holy and righteous but its just not you. Or maybe
you are someone who thinks that God will grade you on a curve. That
if your good deeds outweigh your bad ones youll walk right in to
heaven.
Actually, all these are the symptoms of a spiritually dead person.
To be lovingly honest, this is what the Bible calls:
.alienated
from the life of God[Ephesians 4:18]. Gods ways are holiness and
righteousness because He is holy and righteous. Only those who have
Gods Holy Spirit can desire and live a holy and righteous life.
The problem is YOU. A singer, sings. A dancer, dances. A sinner,
sins. Only not as a profession but as a way of life because of the
sinful nature innate in you.
Gods Standard: PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS
You are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve. No, I will not run
that story again to you. Rather, Ill asks you some questions: 1)
Where were Adam and Eve before the Fall? Answer: Paradise 2) After
the Fall where were they? Answer: Out of Paradise. 3) What sin did
they commit that they were driven out of Paradise? Answer: they ate
of the forbidden fruit. 4) How many sin was that? Answer: One. A
simple dietary command.
Can you count the number of times you have sinned against God
whether in thought, in motive or intentions, in desires, in words
and actions?
You see, you need to sin only once, whether it be a sin in thought,
in motives or intentions, in desires, in words and actions to make
you a sure candidate for the lake of fire. Your subsequent sins
will determine only the degree of punishment youll be having in
hell. God Almighty is that holy. God demands perfect obedience to
His law. Perfect obedience from birth to death.
Though there are degrees of sin, any single sin in whatever degree
is big enough to plunge you to hell, even if you do not feel like
it. Feeling is not the deciding factor here, but the fact. Fact is:
You have sinned. And the wages of sin is death(physical,
spiritual-eternal death in the lake of fire). Romans 6:23.
No happy campers there.
Gods Solution to Mans Desperate Condition: JESUS
CHRIST
In Gods eyes no man living is righteous(Psalm 143:2). Because ALL
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God(Romans 3:23). And
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God(1 Corinthians
6:9-10).
In order for man to enter the kingdom of God, he must have perfect
righteousness. He cannot find perfect righteousness in himself
because no matter how hard he tries to be perfectly righteous in
thought, in motives, in desires, words and actions, try as he
might, he just cannot. His best works are not free from the smear
of sin.
Thats why Isaiah says: But we are all like an unclean thing, and
all our righteousness are like filthy rags
(Isaiah 64:6). We
cannot find perfect righteousness then in ourselves. Our
conditions desperate. Oh! For God to send Someone who will fulfill
perfectly all of Gods commandments, gain perfect righteousness and
give it to me. Someone who will die for my sins-past, present and
future sins- and completely take away all my sins so that in Gods
eyes I will be perfectly righteous!
That Someone is the Lord Jesus Christ. Two thousand years ago He
came, lived a perfectly righteous life, paid the sins of
sinners once for all time(Heb.10:11-12) by dying on the cross,
resurrected and ascended to heaven. He is the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world(John 1:29).
In Him is perfect righteousness(Jeremiah 23:6, 1 Corinthians 1:30).
God so loved the world that He gave His Son to die for the sins of
sinners and was raised that anyone who will put their trust in Him
alone for forgiveness of all sins, God will declare righteous. He
will have a right relationship with God.
Without the Savior who died on the cross, there will be no
forgiveness of sins no matter how sincere you may be in asking for
forgiveness. Without the Savior who died on the cross, no human
being in all of time-from Adam to the last human beings who will be
on earth in the last day-will enter the kingdom of heaven. Without
the Savior dying on the cross for the sins of sinners, there will
be no going to heaven even if you do good all the time.
I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through Me(John 14:6).
Put your trust in the Savior alone my friend. Repent, turn from
your sins and turn to Him. Hes your only hope. Now is the time to
settle your eternal destiny.
Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your
hearts
.(Hebrews 3:15).
You will have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. For when you
have God in your life, you have everything.
