Will you go to heaven after you die? This age-old question is a hard one to answer, because we don’t know how it ended up for those that went before us. As much as everyone wants to believe that their loved one got to enter the pearly gates after their body passed away on earth, most people take comfort in believing that they are now in a better place and choose not to dig deeper to know the truth. Those that spend their lives committed to walking with Jesus day-in and day-out realize that the majority of people around them are not focused on having a relationship with him and spending as much time in prayer and scripture as they need to in order to walk a life that is overflowing with Holy Spirit.
I have a dear friend who is given visions from the Lord, and she asked Jesus to show her where her deceased father went after death. Her faithful and loving heart is now filled with sorrowful knowing, because she was given a vision of her father being sucked down into the depths of the earth with a grimace on his face. Grieving someone we love isn’t easy no matter where we think that their soul will go for eternity, but if we truly knew, then we likely would live our short lives on earth much differently than we do now.
I am so thankful to have had fifty years of life during the era of the 1970’s to 2020’s, and I view each day as a blessing from here on out since I would have been dead if it wasn’t for Christ’s redemptive power. But, I was actually spiritually DEAD through most of those years without even realizing it. Regardless of what year you are reading this, God has a special purpose for you to be alive right here and now. Are you truly living? Life is what only Jesus Christ offers, and everything else is marked by temporary pleasures ending in death.
I know now that even though I was a Christian, I was not truly living fully before last year. For me, I was a woman that thought she could control my destiny, control my schedule, control my family, control my husband, and control my urges to sin. I went to church regularly, I was often putting in extra time to study with a small group Bible Study, I was always trying to be a good person, I tried not to sin, and if I did, I repented and turned away from it, but I was NOT letting Jesus be the Lord and Savior of my life.
Jesus, please forgive me for my sins today… this is something I say daily now, and sometimes even multiple times a day. Being a human is not easy. I often feel blessed to be able to feel Holy Spirit burning in my chest some days until I realize that I hadn’t asked him what he is trying to tell me. When I ask him to show me more clearly what he has to teach me, it’s typically about a sin of mine that he wants to convict me of. The commandments have always seemed fairly straightforward and never seemed too difficult to follow, but there are deeper ones that cause me to stumble fairly often. PRIDE. JUDGMENT. LACKING FAITH. WORRY. FEELING REJECTION.
I kind of see it like a teeter totter that I am struggling to keep balanced, with neither side touching the ground. If I am one with Jesus in my thoughts, my heart, and my behaviors, I am perfectly balanced and completely at peace. But as soon as my desire to control the outcome, trying to get noticed for something that “I” did, questioning God’s plan for me based on what I’m going through at the time, going after something that I want simply because it’s what I want, or focusing on what others think of me rather than what God thinks of me, I am weighting down one side or the other of the teeter totter with my lopsided life of “LIVING FOR ME.” As a human, I see only as far as my selfish desires reach unless I have my eyes focused further out on Jesus.
Jesus gives us grace and washes away our sin if we repent, but we have to be conscious of every moment, because falling into the traps of sin happen before we even know it. Because I know what being a human truly means, I would boldly say that the majority of people that call themselves a Christian are living in sin perpetually and not repenting or turning away from it very often. I feel justified in saying that, not from a place of judgment, but rather from a place of understanding… because that was me, and I didn’t even realize it.
This was me, see if you relate:
Go to church… CHECK.
Try to get the kids to go to Sunday School without a fight, most Sundays… CHECK.
Welcome visitors I see… CHECK.
Listen to the sermon, sing the songs, keep the kids quiet… CHECK.
Smile and visit with people at church… CHECK.
Ask others how they’re doing, smile and nod, maybe even give them a hug and tell them that I will pray for them… CHECK.
Play Christian music in the house… CHECK.
Sign up for one Bible Study at a time, unless I feel pressured to do two… CHECK.
Try to do my Bible Study homework each week… CHECK.
Be a good person in general… CHECK.
DUDE!!! I am so frustrated at myself about wasting so many years sitting on the white picket Christian fence. I thought that was what being a Christian looked like, and I thought that was all there was. If someone were to have asked, I would’ve said that I probably would go to heaven, because the B-I-B-L-E said that I would, at least in my fairly elementary understanding of Scriptures.
This is to all of you Christians in churches across the nations…
God makes covenants with us, not promises. A covenant means that we have to hold up our end of the bargain too, and it’s not all up to God to bless us just because he vows to always want to do that for us. He gave us free will and chooses to never push you to follow his path. Sin has consequences, and they will not go unpunished. Jesus died for us and offered to take the burden of all of our sins upon himself, but we must believe that and surrender ourselves to him. If we hold onto any part of our sinful humanness rather than exchange it for the Holy existence that God created us for, then we are not following in the ways of Jesus Christ.
Being a “Christian” means being a “Little Christ,” so if we’re not following in the ways of Jesus Christ, how can we claim to be a Christian? It may seem harsh, but I am talking to myself here as well. I claimed to be a Christian because I valued and honored all that being a Christian entailed, but I refused to surrender myself. I didn’t think that I needed to do that, actually. How prideful was THAT? I thought that I could do it my way until it really got bad, and then I would call upon my “Superman” God to rescue me.
We are called to be one with Christ, grafted into him as one. We are called to be one with other believers, never competing with them, judging them, or bringing them down. We are called to take care of our neighbor, and EVERYONE is our neighbor, you can’t choose who you want to take care of.
WAKE UP, I beg you. If you call yourself a Christian, then love others as you love yourself, follow his commandments, and let the light of Holy Spirit illuminate you from within. Darkness doesn’t stand a chance against light, and when you allow his light to shine through you, every dark place within you will be illuminated too. You will be refined, put through the fire, and every ounce of who you are will be burned away until you resemble the pure creation that you were designed by God to be. Then, and only then, which only takes place when Christ returns again and all is complete, you will be a perfect reflection of your Heavenly Father, who knew you and chose you before you were even born.
Will you go to heaven when you die? It’s time that each and every one of us spends some serious time with Jesus and discusses this very question. We are never guaranteed tomorrow, and this question is the most important one to get answered unless you don’t care what your eternal soul will have to endure until the end of time.