"Preparing for Life Eternal"

Victory Can Be Yours!

Article #52 – “Preparing for Life Eternal”

            Last week we concluded by stating what the only thing you must do to have eternal life with God.  If you do not choose to believe in Jesus Christ, you may have a decent or even a great life on this earth but will have an indescribable eternal existence separated for God.  Everyone has eternal life but it is a matter of eternity with God or eternity without God.

            The next question would be, what should my life be as a believer while still on this earth?  We have choices every moment of every day.  This life is all about preparing for the life to come.  We are, you might say, in training and the choices we make affect the outcome of how you spend eternity.  If you understand the gospel that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and that he was buried and rose from the grave on the third day (1 Cor. 15:1-4) and believed in Jesus Christ, your entrance into heaven is guaranteed.  There is nothing that you or anyone else can do to keep you from entering heaven if you have believed in Jesus Christ.  “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Eph. 1:13, 14)  No thing or no person can keep us from our inheritance, or entrance into heaven.  Once we have believed we are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit.  We now have our ticket to heaven paid for by the blood of Jesus and tattooed on our hearts.  We no longer have to worry about our salvation.  We can now look beyond that aspect of our eternal destiny.  We now need to be concerned about how we enter into heaven.

            Now that we are rescued from eternal damnation, no longer needing to concern ourselves with where we spend eternity, we must focus on our preparation for the life after our physical death.  Paul says, “I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.  Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win.” (1 Cor. 9: 23, 24)  In any race there will be under achievers and there will be over achievers.  Our eyes, in this race, should be on the trophy.  Many will want to continue living as the world lives but Christians with their eye on the prize will be rewarded.  Remember, even Christians will have a day of judgment before the Lord.  We will be face to face with Jesus Christ one day, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Cor. 5:10)  We must be preparing for that time by serving and loving God by serving and loving others and standing firm for Jesus Christ.

            You, too, can have victory in Jesus!  More to follow.

Lowell Parrish