By: A.B. Timothy
What is life? Is life just the universe experiencing itself? Is it star-dust bumping into stardust? Or is it something more? For all of Time, humans have known of something more. Humans have collectively decided every single time they come together and form communities that there is some kind of force or power beyond themselves. You will never hear of an atheistic tribe discovered in the deep rainforests of the Amazon.n
This ubiquity of the divine gives credence to its existence. It’s a good thing, then, that this Divine saw fit to give us an instruction manual on how to receive eternal life and be with it forever.
Jesus Christ, who is God, tells us in John 3:15&16 that, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave us his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Eternal life, that being life beyond this deteriorating mortal coil, is a free gift offered to everyone from God out of Heaven. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Basically, everything we do that is not good is a sin, and the payment we deserve for those sins is death, that is, separation from the Divine. This is from the greatest to the smallest of wrong things. From murder to telling a little white lie, all are sins and all separate us from God. That’s when the second half of the passage states that the gift of God is Eternal Life. This life is not something we can earn, as all of our works are paid by death.
All you must do to receive this free gift is to accept it. A Jailer in the city of Philippi once threw himself before two of his prisoners and asked them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They didn’t say, “Well, you can start by letting us out of here,” or, “Well, you need to get baptized, bro.” No. They said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Acceptance of God’s gift and belief in the sacrifice of His Son is all that is required to be saved.
Back in John 3:15&16, God didn’t just give His Son to the world so His Son could live a perfect life and show us how it’s done. Rather, He gave us His Son to be sacrificed on a Roman Cross and be raised from the dead three days later. Christ defeated death, so we no longer have to receive that payment for our works, and we can choose to receive his free gift instead.
If you are interested in knowing how you can personally receive Christ as your Savior, send me an email at AlfredoTBenedito@gmail.com. I would love to chat with you and show you how you can know for sure that you are going to heaven one day when you die.
“Die? I thought you said it was Eternal Life?” I hear you say. It is! The Bible says, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Thus, when death (remember: death just means separation) comes for us, all it can do is separate our souls from our bodies and send us to God, if we have accepted His gift. We will close our eyes on Earth one last time and open them in Heaven, where we will live forever with our Savior.