“The Days of Our Lives Are 70 Years;

And If By Reason of Strength They Are 80 Years,

Yet Their Boast Is Only Labor and Sorrow,

For It Is Soon Cutoff, and We Fly Away.” Psalms 90:10

ETERNAL LIFE...

Do you have it?

This is the one issue you need to be sure about!

Do you dare to examine this subject?

You may have spent more time considering the last pair of shoes you bought than you have spent seriously seeking the truth on this subject.

What are you trusting in for your Eternal Life?

Would you rather know now, or later, that you might be trusting in the wrong thing? Later could be too late.

Are you ready for what your future holds?

No one is guaranteed tomorrow. What if today is your last day of life on this earth?  If you were asked right now to name your eternal destination, what would you say?

Did you know that before you go to bed tonight you could know, with total peace and assurance in your heart, that you have received Eternal Life and that you never need to fear this subject again?

PLEASE... Stop whatever you are doing. Find a quiet place and read this. There is nothing more important right now for you than this. Please take the time to consider and perhaps change your eternal destiny (your eternity is a really, really long time).

All we ask is that you be open and honest with yourself. Set aside any quick responses, opinions or excuses and seriously consider your eternal destiny.

What you are about to read may challenge your present belief system, may make you angry, make you laugh, make you cry, or it may be exactly the hope you have been searching for all of your life. In any event, you are about to experience the true and powerful, life changing, eternity-making and bondage-breaking GOOD NEWS of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

There will be no accidental arrivals in Heaven.

There is a transaction of the heart that must be made in this life between you and Jesus, or Heaven will not be your eternal home! This Biblically true statement is not meant to make you feel condemned or afraid, but to compel you to seek after the forgiveness, life and freedom from condemnation that can only be found in Jesus Christ the Son of God. Jesus said in John 3:16-18:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world throughHim might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Friends, right now God extends His grace to you and your families. Father God calls upon you to simply believe in His Son Jesus so that you will no longer be condemned by unbelief, but will enter into a new life and relationship with Him through faith in Jesus. Eternal life can be yours today by simply believing! It’s not a list of religious rules or whether you‘ve been good or bad. Eternal life is a free gift that can’t be earned or deserved, but must simply be received through faith.

But what does it mean to believe?

How can I know for sure?

These questions do have simple answers, but they may be different than you assume.

First, you must know that you are deeply loved by God the Father. His Son Jesus loves you more than you can comprehend. The Holy Spirit loves you and longs for you. My friend, you are wonderfully and marvelously loved by the God who created you for Himself, to be part of His family, forever.

All He wants is a love relationship with you!

A letter was recently found that a respected Christian man had written. This man died in February 2003 and he intended the letter to be found after his death. In this letter, he describes a dream, or night vision that he had many years ago that changed his life. Here is a quote from that letter:

“I had this dream or night vision, which was more real than an actual happening, and I saw the face of my Jesus. We communicated in a way most marvelous, wherein He told me of His great love for me with a kind of communication without words, which I will not attempt to explain. He was assuring me of His great love for me, and when He thought about the possibility of losing me, He wept and pleaded with me not to let this happen. He knew all things; my past, my present, my motives etc., but the future seemed up to me.... I know a little how He loves me, and surely His love for you is just as great.”

Jesus loves you so very much and He desperately does not want to lose you, but without Him you will most certainly be lost.  Please proceed through the following pages and hear this same pleading from Jesus to you. See the tears that fill His eyes at the very thought of losing you. My friend, you don’t have to be lost. Jesus paid a great price to save you and to make Eternal Life a reality for you, but receiving it might be different than you think. God has done all that He can do not to lose you, but now your eternal destination is truly up to you!

Do you feel hopeless?..... There is hope!

Do you feel forgotten?..... You have been remembered!

Do you feel unloved?..... You can feel drenched in His love!

Do you feel condemned?..... You can be redeemed!

Do you need to be saved?..... There is a Savior!

There is a brand new life waiting for you. His name is Jesus and He is life. The Lord God said in Ezekiel 34:16, “I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick...”  There is nothing you feel that He doesn’t know about. There is nothing you need that He doesn’t have. But of all the wonderful things He has to give you, there is one that tops the list -- that without it -- all else becomes worthless. This is the gift of Eternal Life through Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Question: If you were handed a potent medicine, would you blindly take it without question or would you want to know what health condition you had that would require you to take this strong medicine? Would you want to understand how this medicine is designed to help you? Of course you would! Likewise, before you can just blindly decide to receive Jesus’ death on the cross for your sins as your spiritual medicine (a very potent medicine indeed), you must first understand the spiritual condition you have that requires Him and only Him to save you.

The Bible says that “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12

Why do you need to be saved? Good question! Let‘s take a look....

The Condition... We were all born with a deadly spiritual disease called sin. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This sickness began in the Garden of Eden. Shortly after man was created, Adam and Eve rebelled against God‘s way and chose their own way, because they did not believe what God told them was true. God loved Adam and Eve. Before their rebellion He could walk and talk with them in a wonderful personal relationship. God clothed them with His glory, and His Holy Spirit actually dwelt inside of them, making them one with Him.

But Adam And Eve believed the lie of satan, and rebelled (sinned) against God. They ate fruit from the tree that was forbidden from them, they no longer were a suitable dwelling place for His life giving Holy Spirit. Death came just as God said it would. Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17).  However God continued to love Adam and Eve. It grieved Him that the death caused by their disobedience was not only pending physical death, but worse, it was a spiritual death that broke the relationship and intimacy between God and man, the Creator and His created. (Read Romans 5:15 - 19.)

No longer could Adam and Eve be the dwelling place of God the Holy Spirit. No longer could God walk and talk with His precious ones because He is too holy and glorious to come so near a heart, which now contained sin. His awesome holy glory would now destroy them. After the sin, God once again came into the garden calling out to His beloved Adam, “where are you?” (Genesis 3:10). God already knew what had happened, and you can be sure that His calling out to Adam was a cry from a broken heart. Adam and Eve however, were hiding from God because they now were ashamed of their nakedness and sin. And so we still hide from God today because of our sin and shame.

God is crying out to you with a heartache that only a God of love could bear saying, “Where are you?”

But in the Garden, God immediately had a temporary solution. Nothing ever takes Him by surprise you know. In response to Adam and Eve’s sin, God immediately killed an animal whose skin would cover their naked bodies. More importantly, the animal’s death and blood became the first blood sacrifice for sin. This temporary sacrifice was symbolic of the permanent sacrifice for sin to come thousands of years later in His Son Jesus. There must be a sacrifice for sin because God is just, perfect and holy. He cannot simply ignore sin. Sin has a penalty and the penalty is death (Romans 6:23). The Old Testament system of animal sacrifices was for the sins of the people to be symbolically put upon animals that were being sacrificed. This was to “cover” the sin, or in other words, to delay or put off the wrath of God and the penalty of the sin. It was like buying time, because Hebrews 10:4 says, “it is not possible that the blood of goats and bulls could take away sins.” It was a shadow, however, of what was to come in the New Testament when Jesus would be the sacrifice. He is the Lamb of God that actually did away forever with the sins of the people that He bore. God also gave the Ten Commandments and all the systems of law, not because He thought men could gain Eternal Life by attempting to keep them - - - He knows our weaknesses - - -but to expose our sinful condition so that we would see our need for a Savior.

Romans 3:20 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

Have you ever broken God’s law and rebelled against Him? Have you ever lied, stolen, used the name of God in vain or lusted after another person? If so (we all have), then you are deserving of death as the just penalty for your sin because He has said, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). 

God loves you but cannot ignore your sin. God will remain perfect, holy and just in passing this sentence of eternal death upon you. In fact, the Bible says in Romans 2:5, “But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath.” Does this scare you into wanting to try to keep the law better?  Remember what Romans 3:20 says: “by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight.”

 Wait a minute you might say; maybe if I go to church more, pray harder, be more kind, or give more money to the poor, maybe these good deeds will help? Sorry... according to the Bible, none of these good deeds can cancel out even one of your sins because they are not the right currency.

Remember that the wages of sin is death, and death it must be! You must be eternally condemned to bear the just wages for your sin.

Are you ready for someone to rescue you yet? Do you see how badly you need a Savior, one who will take the punishment of death that you deserve? Do you see that you are utterly doomed to death if you try to take care of your sins yourself? Even if you could stop sinning today, what about the ones you have already committed? If you have not put them upon Jesus, then they have not been forgotten, forgiven or put away; they are merely storing up for you God’s wrath for the Day of Wrath.  Yikes! I know this has been hard but it is absolutely true.

Hold on, there’s Good News coming!

The Solution... Just imagine the position our loving Father in Heaven was in. He had lost the intimate relationship with man whom He loved and had created just for that purpose. Man sinned, so man was no longer a suitable dwelling place for His Spirit, preventing God from being one with His creation. God’s holiness and justice demands the penalty of death on all who have sinned (all of us), but His passionate, infinite love for us compelled Him to carry out a plan that was conceived before the foundation of the world (1Peter 1:20), where He Himself would give His life to rescue us from our sin. Did you catch that? Before God even created the world, He knew that He would need to die to save you. Sin did not take Him by surprise. How’s that for a real picture of how much you are loved? God is so mighty and powerful that He could have easily created a people who, like robots, could never disobey Him or turn away from Him. But He is a lovesick and romantic God who only wants love from those who by their own free will choose to love Him. That means you also have the free will to reject Him and His salvation. Although He won’t stop you from rejecting Him, He will however do all that He can to try to persuade you to change your mind. Remember that He desperately loves you and does not want to lose you!

The plan is set in motion... Galatians 4:4-5 says, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

And so to carry out this plan, God Himself, this Jesus, stepped down from His throne in Heaven, where He is worshipped and adored in great glory, and humbled Himself to be born on this earth as a baby. We all know the Christmas story of little Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary in a manager. He came and lived a sinless life in complete submission to His Father in Heaven, all so He could be as John the Baptist called Him “ The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (1 John 1:29).  Just as the sins of the people were put upon the sacrificial lambs in the Old Testament to cover sin, so our sins were to be put upon this perfect Lamb of God so that He could take them to the grave with Him when His blood would be shed on that cruel cross. Think of it!  He came for the sole purpose of suffering and dying to bear your sins and mine to satisfy the just wrath of a Holy God against sin. Remember Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus, who is God, died the death that you should have died, to pay the penalty for sin He didn’t commit, all so that He could offer you the gift of Eternal Life.  Jesus understood that He was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, the only One who could save us from our sin. Isaiah 53:5-7 speaks of Him like this:

“But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

We have turned, every one, to his own way;

And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,

Yet He opened not His mouth;

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter...”

What amazing love! Jesus was not murdered; He willingly offered His life to save all who would believe upon Him. But His death wasn’t the end of the story! On the third day, God raised Him from the dead and many saw Him before He ascended back to Heaven to His rightful place at the right hand of Father God. There He sits even now. His tomb is still empty today!  And because He lives, you too can have Eternal Life through Him by simply believing upon Him and trusting that He purchased your Eternal Life with His blood on the cross. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have Everlasting Life.”

Do you see the good news?  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9.)  God’s grace means unmerited favor, or in other words, getting something we don’t deserve (like Eternal Life). It all happens by faith - believing what God said is true and trusting Him in it. Eternal life is a FREE GIFT offered to all those who believe upon Jesus. Eternal life is free to you because you can’t earn it, bargain for it or buy it. Jesus paid the full price for Eternal Life on the cross. He owns all of it and it’s not for sale. He will only give it away to those who believe in Him, open their heart to Him and call upon His name as Savior. Jesus came to restore us into relationship with the Father, and in doing so, God can once again dwell inside His people by His Spirit and intimacy with us can resume. Do you see that He did it all because He loves you! He wants your love! He wants a love relationship with you!

There is an enemy of your soul. He is clever, ruthless, and the ultimate terrorist.  His name is lucifer or satan, the father of lies, that old dragon called the devil. His only goal is to keep you from inheriting the Eternal Life that Jesus purchased for you on the cross. If he can keep you from understanding the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then he can keep your name out of the Book of Life and take you with him to the lake of fire. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says,

 “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age (satan) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”

In other words, if this message of God sending His Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross to take away your sins so that you might receive Eternal Life through Him does not make sense to you, then satan has put a veil over your eyes. You must immediately ask God to remove it so that you might understand and receive this gospel of Jesus and be saved. Just say, “Dear God, please remove the veil the enemy has put over my eyes so that I can understand why you sent Your Son Jesus to save me. If You are real, please open my eyes and my heart to the gospel, and reveal Yourself to me, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Eternal life is not a thing --- it is a person. His name is Jesus.

Eternal life does not come without Jesus, and Jesus does not come without Eternal Life. He’s a package deal. You see, He IS Eternal Life. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” To receive Eternal Life is to receive Jesus.

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12.) There are many people who want what Jesus has to offer but do not really want Him. It is possible to merely acknowledge Him mentally while withholding your heart from Him. That is like wanting the medicine to work without taking the pill. It must be inside of you and flowing through all of your veins to do you any good. So it is with Jesus.

There may be many, perhaps even very “religious” people, who have a false hope of Eternal Life. They may have mentally acknowledged Jesus and observe religious practices, but never did the only thing that can save them, and that is to simply put their complete trust in Jesus and invite Him into their heart. Oh what a tragedy. My friend, it is Him that you want. He is your peace and your comfort, your best friend and the lover of your soul, your provider, counselor and healer. When you truly experience His presence in your life and begin to understand His great love for you, you’ll then know for certain that Eternal Life would be hell without Him.

Can Jesus really live in me? He not only can but He must. John 3:5-7 says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.”  The words “born again” in the original language more literally mean “born from above” or “born of the Spirit”. What Jesus is really saying is, “if My Spirit doesn‘t dwell inside of you, then you can’t enter Heaven”. You see, when you put complete trust in Jesus for your salvation, it means you have chosen to make Jesus your Savior, no longer depending on your own goodness, merit or deeds for your Eternal Life. When you do this from your heart, at that moment several supernatural things happen:

1. You are saved!  2. Your name is written in Heaven in the Lamb’s Book of Life. 3. The Spirit of Christ, (the Holy Spirit) is sent to dwell inside of you; you have been born of the Spirit! Peace and joy will flood your soul as you know that all of your sins have been forgiven. You have been given a clean slate. For the first time in your life you’re in right standing with your Father in Heaven. You are now a suitable dwelling place for His Spirit because you are now righteous in God’s eyes as a result of having put your faith in Jesus and you now partake of His righteousness. When the Father looks at you, He doesn‘t see your sin; He sees the blood of Jesus covering you.

But that’s not all! The miracle of your new spiritual birth begins to emerge. You will notice that you are changing. God begins changing you from the inside out, by first changing your heart and your desires. He is giving you a new heart! Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”  Your spiritual eyes will blink open like a brand new baby’s as you begin to see spiritual light for the first time. The Bible will begin to make sense to you. You begin to actually love this wonderful Jesus who saved you as you enter into your ever deepening eternal relationship with Him. You will start noticing that the sinful, selfish, lustful things you once enjoyed begin to lose their appeal. Your heart is being drawn more and more toward your Lord who is becoming more and more important and real to you. The power of sin and addiction in your life is being broken as you repent and surrender to the power of Almighty God who is setting you free. John 8:36 says, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Praise God! Jesus is now not only Savior, but is becoming the Lord of your life. Living your life for Him is not the burdensome list of rules that you once thought it would be, but it becomes your greatest joy. A wonderful, fulfilling new life becomes yours!  Your friends may say, “What happened to Mike, he’s become a new person?” My friend, this is a real picture of being saved and “born again.” This is what happens when you truly invite the Lord into your life. He comes in! He saves you! He changes you! You are different. It is the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to you. It is nothing to fear but is to be sought after with all of your heart. You can walk in the supernatural power of God!

Are you suddenly perfect? No, but you will no longer be able to intentionally sin against Him without feeling the Holy Spirit within you prick your heart, urging you to quickly repent - which you will do because you love Him so. And He quickly forgives. He is gracious and full of mercy!  Remember that it all happens by His grace! You don’t or can’t deserve it.

Do you see why Jesus said you must be born again of His Spirit? Only His dwelling inside of you can change you and make you one with Him. Can’t you see that merely observing religious ideas and practices is absolutely powerless to save you or to change your heart? All God wants is your heart. When He has your heart, everything else in your life will follow.

IMPORTANT! You are changed as the result of being saved by His grace. You can never be saved as the result of trying to change yourself first!

We tend to get this all backwards. Dead religion condemns you and tells you that you have to clean yourself up before you can come to God. It asks of you what you cannot deliver, therefore you never feel worthy to come to God and you may not. God knows that you do not have the power to truly change yourself, therefore He says to repent (change your mind about resisting Him) and to come to Him exactly the way you are. It doesn’t matter whether you were born in a church or are a murderer, we all must come to Him the same way, as a sinner needing a Savior. It’s the only way you can honestly come to Him anyway. God does not look forward to the day when He must inflict His wrath upon the ungodly who have rejected His salvation.  He desires that all would come to repentance and be saved.  It does not matter what you have done, where you have been or how filthy or clean you think you are; He will accept you just exactly the way you are if you will only come to Him honestly, as a sinner needing to be saved.  The Bible says in Micah 7:18 “He delights in mercy.” God doesn’t grudgingly forgive you when you repent and call on the name of Jesus, but rather, “...He will abundantly pardon” Isaiah 55:7.

Do you realize how much Jesus desires a relationship with you? He created you, died for you, and pursues you with His love. He offers you the gift of Eternal Life so that you can live forever with Him as His child, complete with a full inheritance. His promise to you is to never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). He has, by His grace, done all the work of initiating this relationship so far, but there is one thing that He requires of you. Because He has made you in His image He gave you a free will to choose. So you must choose Him.  As much as He loves you, He honors you, and He will not force Himself upon you. Oh friend, that you could understand the importance of this one choice. This is the choice you were born to make. 

All Heaven is watching, perhaps in disbelief that this choice even needs pondering at all.  How could this be difficult? On one side you have forgiveness, grace, joy, peace and Eternal Life in the glory of Heaven, lavished upon you with love and acceptance as a child of the Most High God, with all its benefits and privileges. On the other side, your choice is selfish pleasure, guilt, shame, judgment, death and eternal condemnation, with no second chance or hope of relief from the torment of knowing that you absolutely blew it, forever...

Can you feel it? Can you feel the Holy Spirit pulling on your heart right now to be saved? It’s not too late for you. You can still choose Him.

Remember the enemy of your soul? Satan will use everything possible, even things that seem very good and religious, to keep you from entering into a real saving relationship with Jesus. Let‘s use this analogy:

Say you wanted to come to my house and you knew the general vicinity where I lived, but I didn’t want you to come to my house and I intended to throw you off to keep you from ever arriving. Since you know the general direction of my home I couldn’t blatantly tell you to go in the wrong direction right off the bat or you would immediately know that I was lying to you.  If I were clever, I would tell you a way that sounded like the right direction to make you think I was being honest with you, but then I would throw you off on the last couple turns, keeping you from ever arriving at your destination. This is how satan operates in deception when he uses “religion”. He makes it sound very good and even throws in talk of love, peace, spiritual knowledge, good deeds and religious rituals and practices. The direction sounds all right, like it will get you to God, but it never sends you in the final direction of surrendering your heart and life to Jesus, so you trust in Him and Him alone. Your faith will end up being in your practice of religion rather than in Jesus the Savior. Your heart will remain unchanged and your soul unsaved. God doesn’t want outward acts of “religion;” He only wants your heart!

What are You trusting in for your Eternal Life?

Our prayer for you is that you are trusting only in Jesus and His wonderful free gift of Eternal Life that He purchased on the cross for all who simply receive it and Him by faith. God is not trying to trick you out of Eternal Life with Him, but rather, He wants you so much He made it easy for you. Jesus did the dying!