Mr. Smith. May I introduce to you....your only Hope
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…..That’s 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 God’s Word, yet you don’t delight in it. God’s 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 can’t 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 it’s 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 you’ll 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]. God’s ways are holiness and righteousness because He is holy and righteous. Only those who have God’s 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.
God’s Standard: PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS
You are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve. No, I will not run that story again to you. Rather, I’ll 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 you’ll 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.
God’s Solution to Man’s Desperate Condition: JESUS CHRIST
In God’s 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. That’s 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 condition’s desperate. Oh! For God to send Someone who will fulfill perfectly all of God’s 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 God’s 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. He’s 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.
Theology Corner [Light on the Heavy]
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