Leadership

---

The Lord has designed a top-of-the-line-one-of-a-kind-never-wear-out-or-get-tired new body for me - no flesh, no blood. I won’t need those form-fitted slip-ons or holey shirts – the ones my wife has been trying to toss for years - wouldn’t fit anyway. My precious, wedding ring? Autographed baseball, the IRA? Donuts? “There ain’t no heartburn in Heaven.” What about that old King James my parents gave me when I turned ten? Won’t need it - I will always love the written Word but I will be in the presence of the Living Word Himself, forever, so totally enraptured with my Lord, that I will not consider anything else. I will begin to understand as He explains His great love for me and why He said, "You may call Me brother"…that is large.
Perhaps after a few thousand years of sitting at the Master’s feet, I may still not remember those earthly things as I explore the farthest reaches of heaven. I’ll ask Moses what he felt the instant the Red Sea parted. I’ll ask John about the flood of joy he felt as the first to proclaim, "Behold, the Lamb of God…" And, “Paul, finally, we meet…I’m one of the ragamuffins that Jesus loves.” – and it keeps getting better as we meander through eternity.
What am I leaving here? Put it this way: everything made here stays here - earthbound forever, as long as Earth remains. But, although it was developed here, I believe my character, good or bad, stays with me. And my spirit along with my soul and all that they are will be gone in less time than it takes to blink - gone after my last exhale –then, the expression, "you have a choice" will be invalid.
What about pain, agony, fear, weeping - will these be leaving with anyone? Yes, but only if we have chosen Hell, the final destination for these things. Sin, with this trauma among its baggage, can never enter Heaven because God created Heaven a sinless, pain-free, joy-filled environment. On Earth we’re traumatized by those things but in Heaven, never.
Who gets into Heaven? A sinless you and me, if we have taken Jesus Christ up on His offer to invite Him into our heart, allow Him to forgive us of our sin and remove it. He will take our sins away and replace our unrighteousness with His righteousness, and not just the mere, combined righteousness of every good person that has ever lived. When He takes our sin away, it is forever. In Heaven, it never existed, can’t be remembered because the Lord alone wipes our slates clean on this side of Heaven. When Jesus saves through His obedience to His Father and because of His limitless love for us. His salvation is complete and lacks nothing; He will have it no other way.



And this mighty miracle, where God replaces our badness with His goodness, can take place right now! Or we can wait for tomorrow that never comes – but why wait? Because of His Grace, we can trade our unholy badness for His Holy righteousness in an instant! What a deal! Only God can accomplish this absolutely amazing feat. He will – He has. Oswald Chambers said, “All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.” We would be thoroughly insane to wait any longer for a piece of that mighty miracle, and on top of that, eternal life! Think of it!
What about our memories? Based on what we know, Hell is the worst of the unimaginably bad. I believe that in Hell a person can recollect the events wherein they were brought to be there in the first place, not the least of which will be the rejection of Christ and His grace. In Hell, the remorse and sorrow will never be relieved, ever. We will agonize over the things we did, yes, but more over that one thing we did not do when we could have and should have, given the countless, undeserved opportunities His grace afforded us.
A years-long migraine, years of continuously high fever, a decade of the unbearable pain of inoperable cancer, a lifetime with the phantom pain of an amputated leg; all debilitating events in the physical – horrible beyond description. But compare the sum total of these to an eternity separated from our Creator and the worst horror on Earth becomes less than nothing. Certainly, there is no way to describe an eternity of horror in language we can understand. No matter how utterly bad we think separation from God is, it’s always worse. The Lord has given us adequate information and warnings, yet His grace and nothing else can keep us from it.
Put aside all the negative aspects - God has given us infinitely more positive input. Besides, we are incapable of beginning to understand any impact of the penalty of rejecting Christ until we’re fully His. So it is with His unconditional love that He draws us unless we allow fear to chain us and chain us it will. Think about this: we cannot get ourselves into Heaven nor can we keep ourselves out of Hell, yet the choice is ours. It is all about saying, "yes" to Jesus and His grace, which is more than sufficient for every human on earth, all at once. We will definitely not like Hell, so we can choose to be in heaven with the Lord and those who have also chosen the gift of Christ's salvation. Do you know someone that you believe might be going to heaven? And if you believe they might be going, why not go with them? Check with them before they check out - before time’s up.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE