Do you know Him?

Dear Friend,

One of the greatest things I've learned over the past few years, is that according to the Scriptures, the only way to go to heaven is to believe on Jesus Christ. For without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5), and without Him all our good works or righteous deeds are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). It is not enough to believe in Him, we must believe on Him. That is to say, we must depend solely upon what He did on the cross for our salvation. The Gospel of John is one of my favorites. In it Jesus prays:

"And this is eternal life,
that they may know You, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
John 17:3

Here, Jesus states that eternal life does not depend on what we do, but instead on who we know. For example, in Matthew 7:21 He says:

"Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,'
shall enter the kingdom of heaven,
but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Matthew 7:21

Yet many people will do many good things to try to enter heaven:

Many will say to Me in that day,
'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name,
cast out demons in Your name,
and done many wonders in Your name?'
Matthew 7:22

However, they never knew Him, so they spend eternity separated from God in "outer darkness".

And then I will declare to them,
`I never knew you;
depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'
Matthew 7:23

These people were what we would call "good" people. They were very religious doing many things in Jesus' name, yet they never knew Him. And that is why I think many "good" people are not going to make it to heaven, and they will spend eternity separated from God and weeping in regret:

"There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God,
and yourselves thrust out."
Luke 13:28

also He says "there are few who find it..." Matthew 7:14

So what is the will of the Father?

"And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who
sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life;
and I will raise him up at the last day."
John 6:40

The Scriptures says

"that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus
and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved."
Romans 10:9

Belief is from the heart, not from the mind...that is why the Scripture says:

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you will be saved."
Acts 16:31

We must put our trust in Him.... we must fully rely on the fact that the only way to be saved is by trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ to save us.

Jesus calls us all to repentance:

"From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say,
'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"
Matthew 4:17

To repent is to have a change of mind, to stop doing what we know is wrong and to turn to God.

Jesus is not only a perfect saviour, He is Lord of all. He says

"I, even I, am the LORD,
And besides Me there is no savior."
Isaiah 43:11

It is impossible to have Him as our saviour, but not to know Him as our Lord. John summarizes all of eternal life in these two short sentences:

"And this is the testimony:
that God has given us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life;
he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."
1 John 5:11-12

Do you know Him?

If not, I hope you will cry out to Him today. It is written,

"For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."
Joel 2:32, Romans 10:13

your friend,
Christian

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