To Encourage You

1 Timothy 1:15 “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.”

Have you ever noticed that most people who believe in Heaven think that they are going there someday? And if you ask them why, typically you will get some version of this answer: “Because I am a good person.” Or they may be religious, in some way or other, and believe that their religious efforts will earn them the right to be there. Whether either of these types of people realize it or not, it is the height of arrogance to believe that you are a good enough person or that you’ve done enough religious “stuff” to deserve to live in Heaven, where the pure, holy, Jesus, who never even thought a sin, lives forever. Jesus himself said “No one is good – except God alone” (Mark 10:18).

On the other hand, no one that is actually in Heaven believes they deserve to be there. Nor does anyone else that will eventually be going there. Like Paul, the greatest apostle, they see themselves as “the worst” of sinners. Anything “good” that they do, they only do out of gratitude to the One Who was crucified for their sin. They know that even if they had 100 lifetimes, they could never do enough to repay such a debt.

Then there are those, religious or not, who say that you can never know if you will go to Heaven. Woe to that person when he or she stands before the holy God on judgment day who said “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may KNOW that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13), and that also said “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”(John 20:31). On whose authority or on what basis will they be able to answer the eternal God with “No, you can’t know”?!

So, do you realize you can know that you have eternal life? Do you know that you are a sinner, and because of that you are the very kind of person that Jesus said in the verse above from 1 Timothy 1 that He came into this world to save? And if you are a Christian, are you telling others, even the worst of sinners, that they can know this too?