Frday, February 27, 2015
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Well, all of us airline passengers have just squeezed down that narrow aisle to our seats, and everyone is just getting settled in. The ground agent came on board and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a destination check. This is Flight 305 to Atlanta." The next part is what I love. It's so diplomatic it's almost ridiculous. "If Atlanta is not in your travel plans for today, this would be a good time for you to exit the aircraft." In other words, "Hey, Pal, make sure this flight is going where you want to end up!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Making Sure You'll be in Heaven."
It doesn't matter how nice the plane is, how nice the people are, how sure you are that this is the right one, if it isn't going where you want to go, you can't afford to be on it. That's obvious when it comes to our travel destination. It should be obvious when it comes to our eternal destination.
There was a survey that found that a majority of Americans thought their destination when they die will be heaven. Since this is the one thing you can't afford to be wrong about, there's an important question that those folks need to consider. All of us do. "I think I'm going to heaven." Really? Based on what? On what can you base your eternal expectations? How nice you are? How nice your religion is? How much you think this ought to be the way to get to God? It's not true for airplane flights, and it's not true for getting to God and to His heaven.
Only God can tell us how to get to Him. What He said and only what He said is the final word. Everybody else is guessing. Here it is in the words of Jesus Christ himself. Our word for today from the Word of God in John 3:3, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." Now, those two words have been overused, they've been misused, they've been abused, "born again."
But the words "born again" weren't invented by some cult or even by some religion. It was the Son of God himself who told us that that's the way to give ourselves a destination check; to see if in fact I'm going to heaven when my heart has beaten for the last time. You've got to ask, "Are you born again?"
The Bible explains just two chapters earlier how you can be born again. Speaking of Jesus it says, "To all who received Him, to those who believed in Him, He gave them the right to become children of God." You have to be born into His family to be His child just like you were born into your earth family. And you are born again at the moment you "receive Jesus." What does that mean? That means opening up to Him, welcoming Him into your life.
And then it says, "when you believe in Him." That's totally putting your trust in Him as your only ticket to God's heaven. No trust in my religion. No trust in my goodness. No trust in all the things that I have done in my life. No, I am placing all my hopes on the man who died for my sin. I have no hope placed in anything else. It's like a drowning person grabbing a lifeguard, "You are my only hope."
Why is that? Well, it's because your sin will keep you out of heaven. That's what will keep you out. Sin carries a death penalty according to the Bible. The Bible calls it hell. And only Jesus could, and only Jesus did die to pay that death penalty so you don't have to. That's how much He loves you. So only He can remove your sin from God's records. And only people with their sin forgiven can enter God's sinless heaven.
Jesus left no room for any questions. He said in John 3:5, "You must be born again." You have no more important thing in your life to do than to make sure you have boarded the flight that's going to heaven, to be sure you have told Jesus, "I'm putting all my faith in You alone to forgive my sin and get me to heaven." Only He died to make it possible. Only He walked out of his grave to prove He can give eternal life.
Have you ever begun that relationship with Him? Have you ever grabbed Him in total trust and said, "Jesus, I'm yours." If not, let this be your day. I'd love to help you get that settled if you'd just visit our website today and let me walk you through how to begin that relationship. It's ANewStory.com.
If you're trusting anyone or anything other than Jesus to get you where you want to go, don't stay on that flight to disaster. That's the deadliest mistake you can make. Today there's still time to change and get on the only flight where God says the destination is His heaven.