ChristianASP.NET

You can know. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 John 5:13. It reads, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life."

I suppose, like most people, I thought that a person had to wait until they died to find out whether or not they were going to heaven. But that's not what the Bible says. If fact, if you wait until you die, it will be too late. God wants you to KNOW RIGHT NOW that you can spend eternity with Him in heaven. In fact, that is one of the main reasons God gave us the Bible.

The Bible is God's Word. It is reliable. Every word is true. And one of the things that it tells us is that we are all sinners. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) That's bad news, but I admit it came as no surprise to me when I first heard it. I knew I was a sinner. Like everyone else, I had done things wrong. Perhaps I was better than a lot of other people I knew, but I wasn't perfect.

What I didn't know was that sin had such a high price. Romans 6:23 declares, "the wages of sin is death." Wages are something we earn, and our first sin earns us death. Not physical death (at least, not right away), but spiritual death. Let me explain.

When Adam and Eve were created, God placed them in Eden and gave them one prohibition: Don't eat of the tree in the midst of the garden. Then God explained, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Notice what God said. The very day that they ate of that tree, they would die.

Adam and Eve did eat. So why did they continue to live years afterwards? The answer is because they died spiritually, not physically. You see, the word death as used in the Bible simply means, "separation". When a person dies physically, their body is separated from the soul and spirit which give it life. When Adam and Eve died spiritually, their spirits were separated from God which gives us spirit life. That is why the Bible describes men in their natural condition as dead in trespasses and sins. (Ephesians 2:1) Because of Adam's sin we all arrive in this world spiritually D.O.A. After Adam's sin he and Eve reproduced their sinful nature in their children. The Bible describes it this way, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men. " (Romans 5:12) We are not sinners because we live wrong, but because we were born wrong. We were born spiritually dead, and in that condition we fall short of the glory of God. We simply can't go to heaven as we are.

This is why none of our goodness can ever make up for our sins. You see, no matter how much good we try to do we can never change our nature. I once thought that when I died God would weigh the good I'd done against the bad things in my life, and if the good outweighed the bad, then He would let me into heaven. But that's not what the Bible says. Remember, the wages of sin is DEATH, not GOODNESS. No amount of good works, even religious works, can pay for our sin nature. Ephesians 2:8-9 states, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Salvation (going to heaven) is not of works. It is, "The GIFT of God" (Romans 6:23).

As you know, gifts are not free. Somebody has to pay for them. When God gave His Son to die on the cross He was paying for our sins. The only way Jesus could pay for our sins was to die. The Bible tells us that God did this because He loved us. Romans 5:8 says, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Jesus was that perfect man who died in our place. He died for our sins. ALL our sins. Those in our past, and those we haven't even committed yet. Jesus paid for them ALL. Again, listen to what Isaiah 53:6 has to say, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

Christ died for our sins so that we wouldn't have to. He paid the price demanded by the holy justice of God. That is what the cross of Calvary is all about. That awful, bloody event was the evidence that our sins were being paid for. Jesus Christ died there in our place. But He didn't stay dead. After three days he rose from the dead to prove that He was indeed God and that all our sins are paid for. (I Corinthians 15:1-4)

Jesus is alive today. After nearly 2000 years, His grave is still empty. That is why He can offer eternal life in heaven as His gift.

So the question is, what must you do to receive this gift? The Bible says you must receive it by faith. You must BELIEVE that Christ died for your sins and put your confidence in Him alone to save you. John 3:16, the most well known verse in the Bible, states, "For God so loved the world (that includes you) that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever (that includes you) believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Everlasting life in heaven is a gift that God offers us. But in order to make it yours, you must personally trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. I made that decision. I understood that I was a sinner. I understood that the penalty for sin is death. I understood that there was nothing I could do to pay for a single sin. I understood that Jesus Christ had paid for all my sins when He died on the cross. Believing all these things, I put my faith in Jesus Christ to save me. From that moment until now, I have known where I will spend eternity. Having believed on Jesus Christ as my Savior, I now KNOW that I have eternal life. And you can know it, too.

If you have never put your faith in Christ to save you, I invite you to do that today. You can receive God's gift of salvation by believing in Him. John 1:11-12, "He came unto his own, and his own RECEIVED HIM NOT. But as many as RECEIVED HIM, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that BELIEVE ON HIS NAME."