Salvation, Salvation, Salvation!

Basic idea:  God cares more about the salvation of even a single person than for all the goals and dreams in the world.

I was remembering just over the course of the week that God cares more about getting a single person to Heaven rather than hell, than all the goals and dreams that I or anyone else could ever accomplish.  I also believe it is true that He cares more about this than about ALL the possible sum total of human achievement – that is, He cares more about getting one single person to Heaven than all the goals, that we could all achieve, added together. This is important for someone like me because I do believe that God gives goals and dreams and I aspire so much to be the best that I can be.

After thinking about this a little, the idea was cemented in my mind on hearing about the death of someone I had known.  This came as such a shock as it is only a few weeks ago that I posted right here on this blog about the death of another friend.  I had met these friends in similar circumstances, they were both overseas Masters students from the same country at the same university (but different years); and actually these two men were very similar: they were both extremely sensible, down to earth and level-headed men; they were even in similar circumstances of life: each was young, professionally successful and married with a single child. I have to make it clear that I was not particularly close to either of them, however what I saw of them was to me more than sufficient to confirm these opinions of them.

Raising the dead?
As I made clear in my previous blog entry, I believe in the power of God.  The Bible teaches us that God gives His children incredible power, even to do impossible things like raising the dead, as Jesus did. I encouraged everyone to pray for the first friend, for a miraculous restoration of life. Well if he has indeed been restored back to life, I am yet to hear about it. I am going to continue believing the power of God to raise the dead, and working on it until prayers actually yield success.  However my focus in this particular blog post is the concept of salvation.

I’ve always recognised that working to tell others about Jesus is our single most pressing imperative as Christians. The Bible teaches that a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ is the only way for us to gain eternal life, which starts down here on earth and continues forever in Heaven when we die.  We have just celebrated the Christian festival of Easter.  This is the one reason why Jesus came down to earth, why He suffered unjustly, why He was crucified and why He rose again.  It is all because God wants us to be saved, and God wants us to spend eternity in joy and peace with Him and with one another. In Heaven all the injustice of life on earth is going to be put right.  It is going to be beautiful. It is going to be worth anything we might have to suffer through on earth just to get to Heaven.

This post is to encourage any readers, as well as myself, to make this an ongoing priority in our lives.    If you have not made up your mind about Jesus, about whether His claims are true, then I strongly encourage you to please take the time to do this. If indeed His claims are true, then choosing Him now, while you can, will mean the difference for you between an eternity of joy and laughter (and music!) and an eternity of totally unnecessary punishment and suffering.
If you eventually decide against Jesus, then at least you will have actively considered it and made the decision.

If like me you are already a Christian, then could I similarly encourage you to take this seriously?  I always think that I have all the time in the world to tell my friends.  I always assume that my friends are going to live long lives.  I also assume that my own life will stretch out indefinitely.  However, the time will come for each of my friends that they no longer have the chance to choose Christ, and for myself I will no longer be available to tell anyone.   So this is why we have to choose to do it today, while we can.  This is why I urge you not to procrastinate about this decision. Even the day after today, or next week, is not guaranteed for any of us, as it has not been guaranteed for these my two friends.

If you are a Christian then could I also encourage you to reflect the importance of this issue in the way you spend your time, your prayer preoccupations?  Nothing else that we achieve in this life is going to have any eternal value.  Yes we do have to live productive and responsible lives down here on earth.  However everything else that we achieve on earth, no matter how useful or productive it is, is limited to this physical world called Earth and to this lifetime.  That means that when this lifetime ends, it is all going to disappear like a puff of smoke.

So if you are not a Christian then I encourage you to choose Jesus and eternal life today.  If you are already a Christian then I encourage you to continue choosing Jesus and eternal life everyday – not just for yourself, but also for the people you see around you.  God bless 😉

Apples image by Petr Kratochvil at http://www.publicdomainpictures.net