A Message To You

If you were to die tonight, came before God, and he asked you "why should I allow you into my heaven", what would you say in response? Would you begin to list all your good works? Would you tell him how faithful you were in coming to church every Easter and Christmas? Would you claim that you should be let into heaven because of the particular church you belong to? Well, you can be sure that however long your list of good works would be, God’s list of your sins would be longer! In fact, if you had only sinned once in your life, that would be enough for God to deny you entrance into heaven, for "whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10). And we also know that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).

So, now, what would you bring to God to convince Him that he should let you into heaven? If your good works won’t do, what hope do you have? Well, Ephesians 2:8-9 gives you the answer. It says that we are not saved (allowed into heaven) because of our works! That’s because we have no good works before God, anything "good" that we have done has been tainted by our sinfulness! Yes, we are really that bad! But the passage also gives us hope in the midst of this bad situation. It says that we are saved by grace! Do you know what grace is? Grace is getting what we do not deserve – it is undeserved love or favor. Grace can be equated with the word "gift". See, since we are all sinners, we really deserve death and condemnation. Even our best of works, which have been tainted with sin, can not merit us heaven. But God offers you a gift, or grace. "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). So, it is only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ that you may have heaven! All you must do is believe! Receive the gift, don’t reject it! Jesus Christ, while we were sinners, died on the cross and was punished for our sins there! So only by faith in Him can we have the forgiveness of sins and be made clean by his blood.

So, when you die, and God asks you why he should let you into heaven, you need to claim Christ’s works, not your own. When he asks "why", you need to be able to respond "because Jesus died for my sins, and now I stand clothed in his righteousness by faith, and not by works". Claim the gift of God, not your own works, and you shall be saved!