Tuesday, September 2, 2014
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Our daughter was driving through town with our four-year-old grandson in the back seat. As she passed a local senior housing facility, she said, "Honey, that's where my grandfather lived until he died." At that point, our four-year-old jumped in with a respectful correction of his Mommy's choice of words. "Until Jesus called him home," he said. There was a pause – and then our grandson added – "Someday Jesus will call me home, too."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Last Call."
Not bad for a four-year-old! OK, I'm sounding like his grandfather now. But that little guy actually has this death thing figured out better than a lot of us grownup people do, because we don't decide when it's over. God does. And the thing you want to have happen on the day you take your last breath is for Jesus to call you home to heaven. Unfortunately, not everyone's going home. And the alternative is too eternally awful to contemplate.
The Bible makes this clear in 1 John 5:11-12. It's our word for today from the Word of God, and it says that we're all in one of two groups, headed for one of two possible destinations. You are in one of these. It says, "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." Notice – it doesn't say eternal life is in His religion or His rules or in living right. No, the only One who can get us to heaven is His Son. Why? Because He's the only One who died to pay for all the sin that we have; sin that makes it impossible for us to enter a holy God's heaven. The Bible then continues: "He who has the Son..." (That's the Son of God, Jesus.) "He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life."
There it is. Either you're totally forgiven or you're still carrying your sin and its penalty. Either you're headed for heaven or you're headed for hell. And Jesus indicated there will be surprises both places – people that humans would never expect who are going to be in heaven because they pinned all their hopes for spiritual rescue on Jesus. And people in hell who had tons of Christianity but somehow missed Jesus. They never grabbed Him as if He were their only hope.
The truth is that your last call could come any time. Speaking to God in Psalm 139:16, King David says, "All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."
You're not going to die until your work is done. And you can't stay one day longer than when your work is done. And God decides when that is. For a 17-year-old girl who attended a youth event I spoke at, the call actually came in a head-on collision on the way home. And because she had put her trust in Jesus that very night, when she got the call, she was called home, because "He that has the Son has life."
You can't postpone God's call. And you can't be ready for it any other way than to be sure you belong to Jesus Christ, the only One who can remove the sin that will otherwise keep you out of heaven.
You say, "But I'm a good person." Not good enough; not for a perfect God. That's why Jesus came. Why He died. Why He rose again. That's why He's knocking on the door of your heart perhaps this very day. He wants you in heaven with Him forever. But you have to choose that – by consciously and totally giving yourself to Him.
Have you ever really done that? If you're not sure you did, you probably didn't. Let this be the day you finally say, "Jesus, I'm Yours. I accept your death on the cross as being for me for my sin. You are my only hope." If you want to be sure you've begun a relationship with Jesus, and you want to get this settled today, would you go to our website? It's why it's there – ANewStory.com.
You're another day closer to the day the call will come. It just doesn't make sense to risk one more day without Jesus does it? He's calling you right now to give you to Him, so that one day, when the last call comes, He can call you home.