Need Good News?

If you were to die today are you certain that you would go to Heaven?

If not, I have some good news for you. In First John 5:13 we are told something very comforting: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW that you have eternal life.”

What a statement!!! That verse does not say that you have to “wonder if you have eternal life” but instead we find the amazing news that you may know that you have eternal life. It takes about 5 minutes to read this little booklet: isn’t it worth that small amount of your time to get the answer to a question that will impact you forever? Let’s look and see what God’s requirements are for spending eternity with Him after we die.

We All Have a Problem

Romans 3:23 shows us that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” I’ve always known that I have done things which were wrong, but as I looked around I could see many others that were doing much worse things than I had ever done. I felt that I was not a “bad” sinner, just an “average” sinner. I had always pictured God with a giant scale that would have my good works on one side and my bad works on the other. I assumed that surely my good deeds would be greater than my bad deeds and that the “giant scale” would tip in my favor.

Yet Isaiah 64:6 tells us that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” and in James 2:10 we find that if you “keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point” you are guilty of all. It was hard for me to believe that the good things I was trying to do like charity or church membership or keeping the golden rule could be considered “filthy rags.” And since I had certainly offended God by breaking at least one commandment, I am “guilty of all.” How could that be?

A Broken Chain

Well, imagine that you and I are each hanging from the ceiling by a chain with ten links in it. We each have our own chain and we each have ten links in our chain. Suddenly, nine links in my chain break. Nine links in my chain of ten links just snap, all at once. What will happen to me?

Exactly—I am going to fall, aren’t I? Now let’s say that you are still hanging from the ceiling looking down at me as I lay there on the ground when you hear a little popping noise. It’s not nearly as loud as the sound made when all nine of the links in my chain flew apart. No, only one of the links in your chain broke. Aren’t you the fortunate one, with only one link breaking—how lucky you are, right?

Well, maybe not, because you have fallen and landed on the ground right next to me. You fell just as far and hit the ground just as hard as I did, even though more links in my chain broke than in yours. We have all fallen short of the glory of God! It is not really about how many links break, it is about the fact that we have fallen.

A Perfect Standard

One sin makes us a sinner. Instead of comparing myself to other “worse” sinners, I should have been comparing myself to God. Then I would have seen that I, like everyone else, fall completely short of Him. There you and I and the rest of the world lay flat on our faces: all of us fallen, all of us lost, all of us unable to save ourselves.

I was rather stunned as I realized that I wasn’t as good as I had always thought and even more stunned when I read Romans 6:23 where it says that “the wages of sin is death.” Even more alarming is Revelation 20:14 which tells us that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire. Right about now you may be thinking, “Need Good News?” … what kind of booklet is this? This hasn’t been good news; this has only been a bunch of depressing, terrible news! And if I stopped right now you would be correct; it would be hard to find news much worse than this. But fortunately Romans 6:23 does not stop with “the wages of sin is death” Thankfully there is a semicolon and the rest of the verse says, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

God’s Wonderful Gift

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

“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” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Again we see that salvation is the “gift of God.”

It has always interested me that Romans 6:23 does not say that the payment for sin is going to church or that the payment for sin is getting baptized. It does not say that the payment for sin is living a good life. No, it tells us that the payment for sin is death.

We’ve already seen that God so loved the world that He gave us His son Jesus Christ. What did God’s son—Gods gift for us—ultimately do? He was crucified and died: but why? Jesus died because the payment required for sin is death; He died to make the payment we owe for sin so that we would not have to make the payment ourselves.

You meant so much to Him that He allowed Himself to be whipped, spit upon and crucified. He hung on a cross in shame, bled there, and died there so that your sin could be washed away and that you could be forever clean and sinless in the sight of God. Three days later He rose from the dead victorious over sin and death. He took our place and that is God’s gift to us.

Receive the Gift

Now what can we do when someone offers us a gift? We can either receive the gift or we can reject the gift. John 1:12-13 says, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”

Maybe you are saying to yourself, “alright, I do believe that I am a sinner and I do believe that Jesus died to pay for my sin. I now understand that salvation is a gift that I would like to receive. But how do I receive the gift of God”? Acts 2:21 says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” In John 16:24 we find, “Ask, and ye shall receive.”

If you are ready to settle your debt with God and accept the payment that has already been made for your sin then right now just call upon the Lord and ask Him for that gift that He very much would like for you to have.

Stop trusting in yourself, in the good works that you try to do. Let go of the hope that you can be good enough to save yourself, because honestly, none of us can make it to Heaven by our own efforts. Instead, trust only in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is completely able to save you.

If you are willing, why not ask Him now?