By the Numbers

Friday, May 29, 2015

What is the Way to God and Heaven?

                     What is the Way to God and Heaven?

Persons have different ideas about God and heaven. Some think God is all love so everybody will go to heaven. Others believe ideas of God and heaven are only a comforting escape from reality. They see only the sky, trees, animals, and people that die, so, that's all there is to life. For many people, it seems so logical that if there's a good God and good heaven, then the way to both is simple--be good. Christians believe a Creator God made us limited, but moral, rational persons like himself to live in an eternally happy world in relationship with him. This article explains the Christian biblical teaching about the Christian way to God and heaven. Please give it your honest open-minded consideration. Thank you.
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First, it's a fact that nothing produces nothing, and the universe is running down. So, unless the universe created itself, which is logically impossible, then matter, energy, intelligence, and will  must have a source. That source must be an eternal, self-existent, immaterial, unchanging, and a powerfully creative mind.  And, that is so much like what the Bible describes as God.
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 Life too points to an infinite creative intelligence and will. For example, the hen must be fertilized by a rooster and have the chemical ovacleidin 17 for the shell to form. Hens must sit on their eggs 21 days and turn them over several times a day to keep the right temperature for them to hatch. Living things don't pop into being without a cause and they are genetically programmed to produce offspring after their own kind. Don't believe artists drawings of monkeys turning into men. No scientific experiment and no bones in a museum proves it. Mutations are harmful defeats usually eliminated and that don't aid in survival.
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The crucial question we humans should ask is this: does our Creator God care about us and has he acted in our world in ways we can understand? Now if this great Creative Spirit really loves us and wants us to know about him, wouldn't he have to do impossible things to get our attention and for us to know God is Lord of nature? What if someone walked on water, cured obvious ailments and diseases instantly, stopped storms, and raised the dead, just by speaking a word and all the while claim he was God?  Isn't that what it would take.That's what Jesus did and his disciples gave their lives in testimony that it's the truth.
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Again,  what if persons in the name of God predicted things impossible for us to know that really took place exactly as they said. Throughout the Bible we have such future events predicted sometimes centuries before they occur. All the events of Jesus first coming were fulfilled exactly as predicted--Jesus' virgin birth, sinless life, death for sinners, resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and all the while Jesus asked people to believe he was God's Son. Nothing like this is said of any other founder of any world religion.  Would this again show us what Jesus said is the truth?
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 "Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). His apostle Peter said, "There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). His apostle John said, "God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The Bible teaches simple faith in Christ alone as our sin bearer has been taught since the days of Jesus, Peter, John, and Paul until today. But human pride always tries to modify it in some way.
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People say faith in Jesus is to easy, we must perform some kind of good deed such as baptism, joining a church, keeping certain of God's laws. Stop and think! We human beings lie, steal, cheat, hate, abuse each other and sometimes murder. Have you ever done such things? How many times? If we're honest, we would have to admit more times than we can count. Do you seriously think we would do any different in Heaven than we do here and that our sins don't matter to God? Just joining a church, getting baptised, trying to be real good and to keep God's laws even if we knew what they are is not going to make us perfect people worthy of Heaven.
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What about trying God's plan of salvation? It's not what we do, but believing what God has done for us. God knows that we can't be perfect in ourselves, that our natural tendency is to always want our way over His way, that no good thing we could do could erase or cover all the bad things we do, and that evil must be justly punished, not excused or approved
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"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ (the anointed/Messiah)  to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God" (Romans 58-11, NLT). Just pray, God, I trust Your Son Jesus dying to pay for my sins on the cross and to be my Lord forever. Amen (So be it).
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