Or… how to get to heaven for all eternity in two easy steps.

I believe the vast majority of those who profess Christ in one way or another are mistaken about the nature of securing an eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ.  Catholics and Protestants alike, both maintain hope of eventual admission into the presence of God upon death, based on their earthly works.  That is to say, there must be a great universal scale which God holds in His Almighty hands and the believers life is weighed in the balance; things done well (good) on one side and their collective sins (evil) on the opposing.

By way of some scripture, this is accurate.

Revelation 20:12-13… “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”

These are judged “according to their works”.  Plain and simple.

While every word of the Bible is true and every thing the Bible says will come to pass; a dispensational understanding of the Bible demonstrates several judgements taking place nearing the end of time, of which this is but one.  These in the above scripture are not us today, at least not yet.  This blog’s purpose is to explain the dispensational nature of God’s dealings with humanity.  See the Bible Chart for a pictorial representation of this.  We live in the yellow “Grace” section.

God is not judging the world according to our deeds, today.  Today, something else is happening.

2 Corinthians 5:19… “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, NOT imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”

God, through the death, burial and resurrection of Himself in the form of Jesus Christ, has reconciled a fallen sinful world back unto Himself.  The world seems to be nearly completely unaware of this.  The religious world IS completely unaware.  If God is NOT imputing the worlds trespasses unto it, how can He possibly be judging the world at the same time?  One necessitates the other.  Logical answer is:  He can’t be.  Therefore, something else is taking place today.  God has called a “timeout” on judgement if you will (this is the mystery committed unto Paul we here at Grace Country Bible Church teach) and is giving all men everywhere one last chance prior to judgement, declaring free grace through the Apostle Paul.

The following is what God asks of mankind if any man should choose salvation (it is every mans personal choice for sure) and to spend an eternity in heaven with God.

We must first come to the realization that we humans, every single one of us, is a sinner in need of a Savior.

How can a man ever be “found” if he does not understand that he is “lost”?  The understanding and recognition of ones own natural sinful human condition is the door through which opens eternal salvation.  We can never be “right” about anything, unless we first realize we are “wrong” in our current beliefs.  This can be the most difficult thing in life for a man to realize.  Many people believe they are basically, inherently “good”… well, at least better than “that guy” over there, right?  This is NOT how God sees humanity however, and since it is the Creator God making the salvation offer, He gets to make the rules whether we agree with them or not.  God says all fall short of His glory, and all means all.

Romans 3:23… “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

No matter how wonderful people tell you you are, no matter how wonderful the world believes you to be, no matter how wonderful you believe yourself to be; God thinks otherwise when He compares you to His Son.  When once we realize that there is no way we can ever even hope to approach the glory of God in and of ourselves, as the glory of Himself is the measure by which He measures all things (He is Perfect after all); when we learn through right division that God is not weighing our good deeds versus our evil; we come to the only conclusion left logically available.  We are in an utterly hopeless state.  This is inescapable reality.  Dealing with it is the only way to move past it.

On the other hand; no matter how awful and unworthy of salvation you may feel yourself to be, you must understand that no people have ever been “good enough” to have “earned” salvation.  It does not matter what sins you have committed in this world… you ARE a sinner by nature (you CAN’T NOT be a sinner) and God understands that clearly.

Romans 3:20… “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

In this utterly hopeless condition, without God…

Ephesians 2:12… “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:”

…the glorious God makes a way.

Romans 3:21-22… “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that BELIEVE: for there is no difference:”

The key word in the above scripture is “believe”.  Okay… “believe what?”, you rightly ask.  Men today are to believe the gospel of their salvation in this dispensation, the word of truth, the gospel of Christ.

Ephesians 1:13(a)… “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation:”

And those words of truth for this dispensation of grace are:

1 Corinthians 15:1-4… “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;  By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.  For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for OUR sins according to the scriptures;  And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

Romans 4:25… “Who was delivered for OUR offences, and was raised again for OUR justification.”

Ephesians 2:8-9… “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

It is not possible for a man to accurately, honestly boast in the presence of God.  Imperfection cannot boast in the presence of Perfection.  God instructs us today to simply believe that Christ died on the cross; thus offering freely to us the payment we ourselves owed for our own sin, on our behalf; and that He was raised again for our complete justification.  We are ALL sinners in the sight of a Holy God and rightly deserve to die.  God made Christ to BE SIN for us (2 Cor 5:21); the penalty of which is death.  God then exacted that penalty on the One Being who could effectively pay it.  Himself in the form of His Son.

Romans 6:23… “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The Creator God of Heaven took upon Himself the form of human flesh and died the death we deserved to die.  He died in OUR place.  He died FOR us.  God therefore, sees only His Son’s perfect life manifest “in” the saved man because of that mans belief in what Christ did!  He was then raised again for OUR justification that we might be made judicially perfect IN HIM!  Amazing!!!

Philippians 2:5-8… “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

If that is not Perfect and humanly incomprehensible love, I don’t know what is.  God in Christ died to reconcile this entire sinful world back unto Himself.

Romans 5:8… “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died FOR us.”

God is Just AND THEREFORE the Justifier of those that simply believe what He asks us to believe.  Salvation is NOT about us at all, it is ALL about HIM.

Romans 3:26… “To declare, I say, at this time HIS righteousness: that HE might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”  Amen and Amen!

The simple salvation equation: 1 + 2 = eternal life in the presence of the Creator God of the universe.  What could be better than that?

1)  Know that you are lost and without hope.

Plus…

2)  Believe (TRUST) that God in Christ paid your debt for you.  Christ died for YOUR sin.

Plus…

3)  There is no 3…  It’s just 1 + 2!  (Except perhaps to thank God for doing what He did… that would be nice.)

The world will tell you there is a 3 and a 4 and a 5 and a 6 and so on and so on and so on.  There is not.  Not in this dispensation of free grace.  The Bible, Gods very Word, says otherwise.

2 Corinthians 11:3… “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

Colossians 2:8… “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

Eternal salvation is as simple as it gets.  The hard part is recognizing yourself for what you, in reality, truly are.  A worthless corrupt and already dead sinner.  Yes, I said already dead.  Without Christ you are already dead.

John 14:6… “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

Choose life in Christ right now.  An eternity apart from God in hell is the only alternative.

2 Corinthians 6:2… “(For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succoured thee: behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation.)”

I say thank you to our Lord by writing this blog and trying to make Him known unto you   🙂

I hope you keep reading from the first post on, that after your salvation you come to the full knowledge of the truth!  Most importantly, choose LIFE right now, in Christ!

2 Thessalonians 3:16… “Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.“