Tuesday, January 14, 2014

IS THERE A HEAVEN AND WHAT WILL IT BE LIKE?

Continuing the "How Do You Get to Heaven" string:

Here are the requirements for getting to Heaven. WE HAVE TO BE:

  • Perfect like God – no mistakes, no failures, no sins – ever
  • Holy like God – completely set apart and not blemished by sin or any imperfection
  • Blameless like God – no one, including and especially God, can have anything against us  
Now do you understand why we cannot make it there on our own?  None of us are capable of measuring up to this unreachable, impossible standard.
 
BUT, here is the Good News:

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God
reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on
earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.  This includes you who were once
far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts
and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ
in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you
are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
            Colossians 1:19-22 New Living Translation

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were
dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is
only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)  For he raised us from the dead along
with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with
Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible
wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are
united with Christ Jesus.  God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t
take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we
have done, so none of us can boast about it.  For we are God’s masterpiece. He has
created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long
ago.    Ephesians 2:4-10 New Living Translation

Next time a Summary Analogy.

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