This question comes to someone’s mind I’m sure almost on a daily basis. Some crisis comes along…maybe someone close to us dies and we start to wonder…We begin to view our life and question the reality of life and death in light of our own mortality…What happens when we die? Where do we go? Is there life after death as the preachers tell us and if so how do we go to the ‘good’ place and not the ‘bad’?
The first thing you have to realize is that you don’t have to do ANYTHING to be saved, to have your name recorded in the Book of Life and have a home in heaven some day! You don’t have to quit smoking, you don’t have to quit drinking, you don’t have to quit cussing, you don’t have to quit lying, cheating or stealing! You don’t have to do anything because everything that was necessary for you to be saved, have your name remain in the Book of Life, (where it already is), and have a home in heaven some day, has already been DONE for you!
You mean I don’t have to start going to church, pay my tithes, help the little ol’ lady or little ol’ man across the street, say please and thank you, walk down the aisle and take the preachers hand? Can’t I just be a good person?...Nope, now sit down for this… All you have to do to be saved is sincerely APPROPRIATE what has already been done FOR you through Jesus Christ 2000 years ago when He suffered and died on a cross just outside Jerusalem!
He took your sins and mine…past, present and future and the punishment that should rightly have been ours, to that cross with him and did for us what we could never have done for ourselves…A sinless God (Jesus) had to do it because we could never measure up to the righteous requirements of God’s law! He was ‘born’ to ‘die’ so that WE could live!
This is the whole point of being saved…of salvation…“For by GRACE are you saved through FAITH: and that not of yourselves: It is the gift of God: NOT OF WORKS lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8) We are saved by appropriating what God has already done in our behalf through no merit of our own…that’s GRACE. GRACE plus good deeds, turning over a new leaf, or any of the things I mentioned earlier IS NOT GRACE and will never get you to heaven and eternity with Jesus!
What we need to start preaching and teaching doesn’t, and should never begin with “You need to start DOING or NOT doing…so and so if you want to get saved!” What we need to start teaching and preaching is simply "Come to Jesus just as you are, honestly and wholeheartedly appropriate what He’s done in your behalf and you WILL be saved…He’ll take care of all of the other STUFF in your life that doesn’t belong and add what’s needed!
https://youtu.be/UsD2urNjIWQ