Having given it some thought, I figured I’d not leave you hanging with yesterday’s piece. Because I told you about what could be the most incredible thing ever to happen to you (that is, coming into the presence of God in heaven), but I didn’t really get to the “how.” Just a weak, “If you’d like to know…just ask.”
No. I should never turn from the opportunity to give you the “how.” As a matter of fact, I’m not really charged with giving you the results. They’re nice and all, but they shouldn’t be your incentive. The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism sets our priorities straighter: “What is the chief end of man?” Answer: “To glorify God,” and then after that comes the heaven part – “and enjoy him forever.” But the focus is still there on God, even in the getting to heaven.
So in reality, I’m more charged with telling you how you get the results. At least, that’s the perspective I’m taking. If you’re trying to get people to heaven by telling them how cool it is, you’re doing it wrong. I mean, I’m sure people would absolutely love to go somewhere nice when they (permanently) retire, but that’s why we have Mediterranean cruises, isn’t it? A little trip to Hawaii? Are you saying I get to live there forever, free of charge? Sign me up.
But this isn’t Hawaii. And there actually is an entry requirement, and that is (see yesterday) that you’ve got to be worthy of it. Heaven is perfect and pure, so you can’t come in tracking mud all over the place. This is why I keep coming to the phrase, “set apart.” Because it’s different than going to Hawaii. It’s so much more. And it requires so much more of us – it requires the perfection of us that is heaven. The perfection that God will not reject outright.
So it’s best to figure out if you have it covered now, before you’re standing in line at the door waiting to get in. Are you, indeed, perfect? Have you ever lied? Have you ever taken something that isn’t yours? Had an affair or cursed your parents? Hated? Deceived? Fudged numbers on your taxes? I suppose I could keep going, but I think you should get the point by now.
Jesus said it wasn’t the healthy that needed a doctor, but the sick. Our problem is too many of us think we’re perfectly healthy. That’s usually what we get when we compare ourselves to the desperately ill. “I’m far better off than Mr. Jones. He’s got stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I’m only having the odd chest pain.”
But it wasn’t Jesus’s point that he was only coming for those few that were really bad off. He knew that everyone was sick, and so he tended to each of them in his way. But he was still pretty clear on the one key thing: his own role in it all. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” (John 14:6). And of course, God was in on it: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).
“Eternal life.” Heaven. How? “In Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here it is: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned.” You’ve seen it at the football games, right? “JOHN 3:16” (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”).
But…how? It can’t be “just like that!” We don’t become perfect “just like that,” do we? I mean, that’s too easy.
If you’ve read me before, you’ve seen that it can be: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21). All it takes is believing in him for that. “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3). Knowing – admitting to ourselves – that we could never do enough to clean ourselves up, but that God stepped in and did what we were supposed to be doing all along, so that, in the death and resurrection of Christ, he could satisfy the conditions that keep us out of heaven. So that we could take on his righteousness. So that we could become new and clean and pure.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
2 Cor 5:17-19
You really can’t miss it. It’s all over the place. And it’s this simple: Put your trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation. Repent – turn your back on your old way of living in rebellion against God – and believe the good news. Be set apart for something so much better.