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The Bible says that Heaven is a free gift. It is not without price, but God paid the price for us! - Continue.... Heaven cannot be earned and we do not deserved it. gift of God, and not of works so that no man may boast." Ephesians 2:8-9 Let me give you an example: Suppose a good friend of yours came over to your house in a brand new car. Then He got out of it and gave you the keys and said, "I want you to have this. It is a gift." Then, what if the first thing you did was to pull out $20 to give your friend for the car. That would be an insult wouldn't it? For two reasons, 1) It was a gift and you are trying to pay for it, making it no longer a gift, and 2) you are telling your friend that the car is only worth $20 to you! We can see that this is insulting, but people do this with God's gift all the time. He gives it to us freely and we say we are trying to be a good person, or loving others. And not only is that the insult of the $20, but if we were to try and buy heaven, we don't have nearly enough to do it! This can be seen more clearly when we see what the Bible says about man. - "What does the Bible say about man?" you ask. - [You say, "I don't believe the Bible, so it doesn't matter what it says."] (coming soon) - "I have heard enough," you reply, "I'm leaving." Before you leave, I just want you to know that I have some great news! God is offering Eternel Life to us free! He has gone to great expense to give us this gift, and you will not be able to get it unless you know how to RECEIVE it! If you still must go, and you don't know how to receive the gift, I am praying that you will receive it before the door is shut and God stops offering it. - "Ok," you say, "I will stay and hear about the gift God is offering." "Start again." - "I'm leaving, but pray for me if you want to." you say. - You respond with, "I don't want to listen anymore, thanks anyway." If you would like to e-mail me to ask for prayer, or if you would like to talk about what you are reading here please e-mail me. I would be happy to talk with you or pray for anything you need. God loves you, and so do I. - "I will email you by clicking here." you say. - "I would rather not e-mail you, you say, "thanks anyway." The Bible says that man is a sinner . It says we have all done things wrong. In the book of Matthew, Jesus is talking to a group of religious leaders and says, "Depart from me you wicked and evil generation into everlasting fires set aside for the devil and his angels." Do you know what they did to make Jesus say this? They didn't do anything! Jesus said to them, " When I was in prison you visited me not, when I was naked you clothed me not, when I was hungry you fed me not." And they said, "When did we not do those things for you?" And Jesus replied, "When you did it not to the least of these, my brethren, you did it not to me. " - Continue.... So you see, by not doing anything 'wrong' and just sitting around at home, we sin by not doing those things for others. One more example will make this more clear. Suppose I could stop doing anything 'wrong'. I never hate, steal, lie, or anything else. And just suppose I did everything I could for others. All my time was spent helping. But lets say that in any given day I had three bad thoughts. Jesus said, "If you lust after a woman in your heart, it is as bad as committing adultry." So thinking impure thoughts are sins too. But what if I could cut my sins down to ONLY three impure thoughts a day. That would make me a REALLY good person, right? Almost perfect! But three sins a day is over 1,000 a year, and in a lifetime could add up to 70,000 sins! Even if they were tiny sins like bad thoughts, that is a lot! If you were to go before a judge with a parking ticket, and pleed with him to let you off, and tell him you would not do it again, he might let you go. But if you walked in with 70,000 parking tickets, you'd be locked up! Even small sins add up in this life. And God can't let them go without punishment. - Continue.... 1 John 1:8 This brings us to the fact that man cannot save himself. - "Why can't man save himself?" you ask, "and how can we be saved?" - "I think people are basically good. I don't have that many sins." you claim. "I think God would just forgive me, like the judge and one ticket." You may be right, you may be a very good person. But are you saying you never think bad thoughts? You never say bad things? You never do wrong? And you always put others first? Even very good people sin. If you do a billion things in your life, and only sin one million times, you are 99.9% good! But 1 Million sins is still a lot! And the Bible tells us that God CAN'T let even one sin go unpunished. Will you allow me to explain why? I think it will make sense to you. - "Ok," you say, "explain it. Why can't God let a few sins go?" - "No," you reply, "I don't want to hear anymore. I don't believe God will make people go to hell for things they can't help doing." You are right! God doesn't want anyone to go to Hell! This is exactly why He made a way for us to get into heaven. He didn't just dismiss the sins, because that would not be just. He made a way where He paid the price for our sins in our place! It is great news, and I beleive it will be made clear that the Bible teaches that God is loving and because of that love, He made a way for us to be saved. If you will allow me to go on, I am sure this will become clear. - "Ok explain it," you reply, "why can't God let a few sins go? And how did He find a way to save us?" - "No, I don't want to hear anymore. I'm leaving." you say. Jesus said, The entrance requirement God made to get into Heaven is perfection. If you want to get into heaven on your own all you have to do is be perfect. We all fall short of this and God doesn't grade on a curve. A good example is this: Supose you were making scrambled eggs for a group of friends. Let us say you cracked open about 15 eggs, and the 16th egg was completely rotten. Would you still scramble them up and serve them to your friends? Probably not. They would notice something was wrong. The same thing goes for God. We all do the best we can in life, and try to cover up the 'rotten' things we do, and serve our lives up to God. But even with only ONE sin, God would notice something was wrong. He can't allow that, just as your friends wouldn't eat a rotten egg. Do you see now why it is impossible to get to heaven of your own good works? This comes into sharper focus when we look at what the Bible says about God... - "What does the Bible say about God?" you inquire. - "I have heard enough," you say, "I'm leaving." First, God is our creator... The Bible says that God is merciful and therefore does not want to punish us. But the SAME Bible says God is also just and therefore MUST punish sin. "HE will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" Exodus 34:7 So, we have a problem... God loves us all, but by His very nature, He MUST punish our sins by eternal death. The Bible says that He can not even look at sin, so He couldn't very well be in its presents (in us) for all eternity. But, God solved our problem in the person of Jesus Christ! - "What does the Bible say about Jesus?" you ask, "How did he solve our problem?" - ["I don't beleive that about God." you say, "How do you know the Bible is right?"] (coming soon) - "I have heard enough," you say, "I'm leaving." |
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