newlife3

Chapter 5

Saving Your Soul

All human beings are sinners. Each of us is a mixture of good and bad. The seven deadly sins are pride, greed, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth. These personal faults also have a bad impact on other human beings.

Sinful pride is an excessive belief in one's superiority. This leads to a failure to accord the proper respect to other persons. Anger often leads to violence against others. Lust is unrestrained sexual gratification that results in pornography and brutal treatment of others. Envy leads to hatred of other people. Gluttony refers to misuse of food, alcohol, and illegal drugs and brings on many problems for other people. Greed is a persistent practice of gathering for oneself unreasonable shares of various goods.

Reaching the destiny of a new and happier life after death is different for religious-minded persons and secular-minded persons. The Christian religion provides a crystal clear pathway to heaven.

Christians know well the behavior called for in order to save their souls, but they do have many difficulties in living according to their Christian beliefs. For Christians, the New Testament of the Bible provides "the good news" from God on how eternal salvation is found in faith in Jesus Christ.

Secular persons have the voice of conscience within themselves telling them to do good and to avoid evil. They have the power of rational thinking to guide them in their behavior. They have had advice provided to them in their youthful years on proper ethical and moral conduct. At their place of work and in their lives in civil communities, they are made aware that they must abide by many rules and regulations.

Secularists may give little thought to God, but they cannot escape being made aware of their success or failure in their relationships witth other human beings. Secularists by their free choices in their behavior either improve or damage their souls. Each sane person is fully responsible for personal vices. Each person can be a hero or a scoundrel.

Even among the worst gang of outlaws, some standards of morality are observed. The robbers may rob everyone in the world, but they know that there is danger in robbing each other.

Free choices made by individuals -- religious and secular -- are crucial factors in the attainment of heaven. Each person must inevitably say either Yes or No to the idea of life after death. God extends to every person the invitation to a new life after death. Each person must decide to accept or to reject this invitation. Some persons show strong hostility to God. They have rejected God; God has not rejected them.

Insight into the mind of God is offered in the biblical account of God praising a person for helping God when God was hungry, thirsty, and unclothed. The person is bewildered saying he did not know that he had served God.

The Lord responded that when the person did kindesses to the poorest of the poor, God reward these good acts as being done for Him.

In Dostoevski's novel, The Brothers Karamozov, this advice is provided for achieving a belief in life beyond the grave:

"Try to love your neighbor with a relentless, active, effective fervor. As your love grows, you will be more and more convinced of both the existence of God and the immortality of the soul."

For Christians, love of neighbor leads to greater love of God. For secularists, love of neighbor may be sufficient to save their souls.

Centuries ago, Pascal compared a person's decision not to believe in heaven as being the greatest gamble that a person could make. Perhaps there are persons who are willing to risk on one wager everything of material value that they possess -- all of their money, their home, their stocks and bonds. An indvidual who lost such a wager would be completely devastated.

Pascal pointed out that the risk taken by the atheist is far greater because his entire future happiness may be lost. Imagine the horror of finding out after death that the decision against God was wrong!

The person risking all on a wager on earth would have some hope of starting from nothing to again accumulate worldly goods, but the atheist would be unable to change anything. His decision against God made during the person's life would be impossible to correct after death.

Sometimes one hears of persons being converted to belief in God while they are on their deathbeds. It is true that up to the moment of death, the opportunity is present to make a final decision in favor of God. Most often, however, persons die as they have lived. Each person normally establishes a fundamental orientation in religious outlook that is maintained to the end of life. Sudden acceptance of God's dominion does not appear to occur very often.

A person's attitude toward God is usually consistent with the numerous acts of the person. The final decision is normally an expression in a deep form of the pattern established by past decisions. Seldom do hardened sinners have last minute conversions.

A large part of the population of the world is non-Christian. The non-Christian as well as the Christian will be judged on loyalty to Almighty God. The ultimate question for each person is a very simple question -- Do you say Yes to God's invitation to eternal life or do you say No to God?

Sins may be viewed as basically acts of rebellion against God. Persons will come to Heaven from the four corners of the earth.

Christian religious leaders have acknowledged that persons who have never been instructed in Christian religious beliefs may attain personal salvation. All persons are expected to live according to the true dictates of conscience. Conscience may be regarded as the voice of God prompting persons to live in accordance with the laws of God.

Extremely important at all times in history has been the image of the scales of Justice weighing on one side of the balance the good deeds of an individual's life and on the other side of the balance the bad deeds. The moment arrives in the life of each person when the accounts must be settled; the assets and the liabilities must be counted. The books must be closed.

We are dependent upon the mercy of God for our admission into God's kingdom. God wants every human being to accept His love and to be saved. The Bible provides us with the word of God.

God Invites Every Human Being to Come to Heaven

Signs of a Yes to God's invitation

Signs of a No to God's invitation

Capable of unselfish love

Incapable of unselfish love

Kindness of heart

Hardness of heart

Penitent - sorry for sins

Impenitent - denies sinfulness

Sensitive to feelings of others

Narcissitic

Obeys conscience

Ignores conscience

Friendly to religion

Hostile to religion

An open mind

A closed mind

Believes in life after death

Denies life after death

Recognizes existence of the soul

Denies existence of the soul

Respects the Bible

Rejects the Bible

Obedient to God's laws

Disobedient to God's laws

Resolves to lead a better life

Fully satisified with way of life

Optimistic and hopeful

Pessimistic and skeptical

God-fearing

Indifferent to God

Attitude of humility

Attitude of excessive pride

Asks for God's help

No belief in God's help

Friendly to Jesus Christ

Hostile to Jesus Christ

Ready to forgive enemies

Filled with hatred

An honest person

A dishonest person

Chapter 6

Heaven

Jeremy Taylor made this statement about life in heaven:

"It is ten to one but when we die we shall find the state of affairs wholly differing from all other opinions here."

The fact is that we cannot find anywhere in our imaginations a realistic picture of details of life in heaven. Our imaginations pertain only to objects of sense, to material things. Images of heaven cannot be concrete and real.

It is natural for human beings to try to conceive of a life of perfect happiness. One scholar who found his greatest pleasure in life in reading books said that he liked to think of heaven as being one huge library where he would have an inexhaustible supply of good books.

Persons who in earthly life have had to struggle each day to secure the simple necessities of life might think of heaven as a place where they would find food, clothing, and shelter in plentiful supply. Ludwig van Beethoven expressed the hope that he would find his hearing restored to him in heaven.

Some who have endured a lifetime of loneliness might conceive of heaven as bringing them into the company of good and congenial people who would extend their friendship to everyone without reserve.

A very common conviction is that each new arrival in heaven will be reunited with the persons that the new arrival had loved on earth. In heaven, family members and friends will once again be together.

Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death, and they thought that the new life would be very similar to the earthly life with which they were familiar. The striking example of this belief is the discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh, Tutankhamen, who died when he was about eighteen years of age. His tomb from the year 1322 B.C. was discovered and opened in 1922.

Tutankhamen's mummy lay within a nest of three coffins. The innermost coffin was of solid gold; the two outer coffins were of gold hammered over wooden frames. On the king's head was a golden portrait mask. Adjoining rooms were filled with furniture, clothes, weapons, staffs, and numerous other articles for his use in heaven.

Elements of truth may possibly be found in the conception of heaven as a new Garden of Eden. This is a view that heaven will be a verdant land with fresh streams of water, trees filled with fruits, shady groves, sweet-smelling flowers, lovely fountains, spacious lawns, multi-colored birds, gentle animals, and a temperate climate.

Our earth is the creation of God, and He might plan to transform His earth as a fitting home for our resurrected bodies.

Plato identified happiness in our next life as being spiritual inner peace, spiritual well-being, and harmony of soul.

Without question, the greatest happiness for you in your heavenly home will be for you to find yourself in the presence of God. The significance of this fact is impossible to grasp because God is incomprehensible to mortal minds. A cup cannot hold the oceans.

Human knowledge of God is partial, indirect, obscure, and imperfect. We see the work of the Divine Artist in the beauty of the universe. We see God's power in the orderliness of the universe. We see the goodness of God reflected in the many good and wise human beings who inhabit the earth.

God is shown by artists as a gentle, aged person with a beard, wearing a white robe, sitting on a throne. This image does not communicate the glory and majesty of God.

For a Christian, the clearest image of God is the image of Jesus Christ, as Our Lord and Our Savior.

Christians know and love God in the person of Jesus Christ who walked the face of the earth teaching the word of God and doing the good works of God. They regard the God-man, Jesus, as being with them in spirit as their best friend as well as their most influential friend sitting at the right hand of God the Father. The words of Jesus and the actions of Jesus are vividly in the minds of Christians because these words and actions are clearly presented in the New Testament of the Bible.

In heaven, God's rule will be supreme. The evils that were present in life on earth will no longer exist. In the life after death we will truly live in God's world.

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