with others. In hard times, they realize God is their loving Savior, Lord, Master, Defender, Deliverer, and their Coming King, the Majesty for all believers, through Jesus Christ their Lord, their source of love and delight. They know God knows them and they know Him by His demonstration of love and care as He intersects with them throughout their new life made complete in Jesus Christ by His Spirit given them at the same time as their salvation, as God promises in His Word. They believe God and abide in His Word. They converse with God through prayer. God is their loving Father, and they are His children, who will never lose their salvation but are kept by grace complete in Jesus Christ. They believe God’s Word. Jesus is the Word, and He is God. They know the truth. Grace, mercy, and peace are and will be in them, (2 Jn 1: 1-2; Jn 11: 26), even in hard times, and they will dwell with Him, forever, in Heaven. They will not face the punishment of the second death.
Self-existent, loving Everlasting Almighty Lord God, Majestic Glory, has introduced Himself in His Word (The Holy Bible) to humankind, revealed His wonderful plan of salvation, to rescue all humanity, that means you and me, from Satan, the Fall, sinfulness, like immoral disobedience, unrighteousness, ungodly living, and lovelessness toward God and fellow man. God says that He was in His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom He sent to come in the flesh (Emmanuel i. e. God with us). He lived a perfect life, shed His blood, was crucified, the just for the unjust. On the third day, He was raised bodily from the dead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for our justification. His work was a substitutionary atonement totally (i.e.He died in our place) for a gift of salvation for all humanity, especially for all those who believe God, forsake their sin and believe in Jesus as the Christ, as their Savior, and Lord by faith, (Eph 2: 8-9), so humanity does not have to work for their salvation. He gives His Holy Spirit to dwell in believers’ hearts immediately upon rescue, (Rom 8: 14-16; Gal 4: 6; 1 Jn 5: 1), to comfort, guide and, teach them to observe what He has commanded them through Christ Jesus, to live changed lives, the real Christian life out of love and obedience to Him, (Gal 4: 6-7), just as God has planned in His business of salvation. God has promised that His Son, Jesus, will return to take those who believe Him, and believe in His Son, having received His Son, thus have been born-again, back to an eternal home, called Heaven. You can know you are at peace with God today and will have eternal life in His presence, in the afterlife. That is His will for you. Will you accept and do His will?
For those, who reject the true God, in Judgment Day their future will be dismal. He will say to them, I never knew you; depart from Me (into everlasting living punishment, in a real place called Hell): “I never knew you, ye that work iniquity, (People of wicked deeds, people that think and practice that their good works will earn them a right to heaven),” (Matt 7: 23). You say “Yes, but so what?” You sound unreal if you are saying that a loving God would send unchristian friends, body, and soul, to an eternity in hell. God will if they have not believed in and received His Son, Jesus Christ. Some false teachers say a man will not face eternal punishment but will be annihilated.
A new Christian needs sound biblical, follow-up teaching. He needs to be taught to understand what the problem is, every man’s, not just his friend’s, need for the solution to sin, which God has provided through Jesus. Will he, and his friends, believe the true God, Majestic Glory, trust His Words, and His requirements, not their thoughts, and ways, for eternal life in Heaven? Why make it complicated and confusing; God’s solution is simple enough for young children to understand? One needs to be ready for eternity, God’s way; that is His business; a gift is His way. How can you be prepared for eternity, and know you are ready? These are questions that the author hopes to answer for readers. The answers do not come easy, especially if you are responsible for explaining to someone needing truth in love. God teaches spiritually discerned answers to those, who read and heed His Word. God drafted the plan and gave the instructions to and for humankind. He said that the way one may answer ‘Yes’ to be ready to be ready to be let into the Kingdom of God, (Jn 3: 3), is through a total new birth by God the Holy Spirit. God’s message to humanity is an eternal constant message, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life,” (Jn 3: 16). If you believe God, repent of your sin and, turn to Jesus to believe in Him, receive Him and trust in Him, then God will forgive you your sins, give you peace, and welcome you into His Home in Heaven in Judgment Day. Will you make your decision, for Jesus?
Observe the Apostles’ Creed, used in evangelical Lutheran worship; a summation of the Christian, biblical faith:
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth,
And in Jesus Christ, the Only Son, our Lord;
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit;
Born of the Virgin Mary:
Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and was buried.
He descended into Hell. On the Third Day, He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into Heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence He will come to judge the quick and the dead;
And I believe in the Holy Spirit;
The holy Christian Church;
The communion of saints;
The forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the Body;
And the Life Everlasting. Amen.”⁷
God says of His Only Begotten (not created) Son, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right (power) to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name,” (Jn 1: 12). Will you believe God?” Ask yourself the question about receiving Christ. You may decide to say ‘Yes.’ You do not have to go through life alone. The answer is not easy, nor simplistic, but eternal life in God’s presence, for each of us depends on our answer to God. We need His Promised Holy Spirit at the time of Salvation for being able to perceive and understand God’s gift for everyone, who will believe God, the Majestic Glory as Heavenly Father. The matter is simple on the other side of complexity. God wants to give you His gift of eternal life through His Son Jesus. That is why an individual must be born of God the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said, (Jn 3: 5-8); receive rather than work for one’s salvation. Billy Graham reflects on true spirituality, when in his autobiography, Just as I Am, he writes: “Most of all, if anything has been accomplished through my life, it has been solely God’s doing, not mine, and He, not I, must get all the credit.”⁸ The true believer gives all the glory with thanksgiving to God for eternal life and, being used in Christian service in God’s fields white unto harvest, soul-winning.
In His Word, God introduces Himself to humankind as Elohim (Hebrew) and says: “In the beginning, God (Elohim, Hebrew for God, one God-Three Persons) created the heavens and the earth,” (Gen 1: 1). God crowns his one- week creation with the creation of man: “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them,” (Gen 1:27). In the New Testament, God opens the Gospel of Matthew by saying, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham (regarding the Eternal Son of God, Deity Incarnate),” (Matt 1: 1). In the Gospel According to John, God says of His only begotten Son, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” (Jn 1: 1). Toward the end of the New Testament, God says, in the Book of James:
“Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members (inside you)? Ye lust and ye have not: ye kill, and you covet and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss (marked by fault or defect; wrong), that ye may spend it in your pleasures. Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God (causes God to be ill-willed toward you)? Whosoever, therefore, would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. Or think ye that the scripture (the Word of God) speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit (He, the Holy Spirit) which he made to dwell in us long unto envying? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore the scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Be subject, therefore, unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee