If You "fill in the blank" Will You Still Go To Heaven?

This is one of the most common questions that I've heard. Some have asked, "if you commit suicide, will you still go to Heaven?" There have been questions about if you are Muslim, homosexual, infants (that's a whole other blog), even Catholic or Mormon. Bottom line question is, who goes to Heaven and who doesn't?

There is, of course, the simple answer that says "if you believe in Jesus, you go to Heaven" which is true. I want to dig in a little deeper. There are verses that seem to contradict in the answers. We have verses that tell us that if we believe in Jesus, we would be saved, but Galatians 5:19-21 says:
the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So Paul says that people who practice these things don't have the inheritance, but what about those who do these things and also believe in Jesus, do they go to Heaven?  We see the same things listed in 1 Corinthian 6:9, this is a list of people who practice these things will not inherit Heaven. This verse includes "those who practice homosexuality" and it says they will not inherit Heaven. There are arguments that this is "sexual idol worship" with pagan priests, but there is no real historical or textual support for that interpretation. In the entire text of the New Testament, any sex outside of a husband and wife inside of the bounds of marriage is placed in the same category. That category is sin.

We need to understand a few things about sin before we more forward. First off, we all sin in some ways. Sometimes we lie or cheat or lust or hate. These are sin. Apart from Christ, we are slaves to sin, and we all have weakness. Some struggle with lust or pornography, some with anger or hate, some with greed. The Bible says that lust is a sin, but attraction itself is not a sin. Having same sex attraction is not a sin. Acting on same sex attraction is a sin. Any sexual contact that is not a man and woman in the context of Biblical marriage is sin. Is two men or two women kissing a sin? It's a more hazy area, the Bible doesn't say, but if the actions lead to sin (sex outside the Biblical context) then it's problematic.

The verses we looked at covered sins that become habitual sins. Sex outside of marriage, lust and porn, a lifestyle of greed or living for revenge, things that control and drive our lives are habitual sins. The verses that Paul writes about points out habitual sins, lifestyle sins. These things become a way of living and are often in our lives in the place of Christ. When Paul says the people who practice these things won't inherit Heaven, he is referring to people who practice these things as a life style.

The truth of the Bible is that Jesus will change your life when you become His. Your life revolves around Him. You have a desire to obey, you want to live in a way that follows the Bible. If you don't want to stop sinning, you probably aren't saved. If you want to live however you want and don't care what the Bible teaches about it, chances are you have not been truly saved.

You don't have to take my word for it, read Peter's word. He writes in 2 Peter 1 that we can know we are saved by our behavior. In verse 10 he says that we can confirm our calling and election by having the qualities he listed and to escape the corruption in the world because of sinful desire. If we are more in love with sin than Jesus, we are not saved. If we hold to our sin more than we hold to Jesus, we are not saved. If we lack the qualities that come from being saved, we are probably not saved.

The behaviors don't mean you lose your salvation. If you sin and fail, get up and pray and ask for forgiveness and strength. If you fail again, keep seeking and praying. If you struggle, you will make it. If you stop struggling and just embrace sin, you may find that you don't know Christ, and you will end up separated from Him. Not because you did this or that, but because you are spiritually dead in your sins and you have never been saved. You will find yourself separated from Him for eternity.

Lastly, I want to cover the suicide issue. Many have said that if you kill yourself, you sin without having the chance to ask for forgiveness. When you trust Christ and turn from your sin, you are forgiven eternally. If you are in Christ and end up committing suicice, it is not a one way ticket to hell. If you are in Christ, you go to Heaven. My prayer is that those who are in Christ find the strenght to continue to live and don't commit suicide and those part from Christ are saved and find hope to continue on.

My Lessons from Lessons from the East by Bob Roberts Jr.

A different perspective is always important, and Bob Roberts Jr. gave us one. I have worked through this book. We in the American church we try to cram everything into Sunday morning service. We say church and think building and service and an hour on Sunday. We try to do everything in our American way thinking in the best way and the only way. Maybe we should look outside our western context of the church, after all we aren't really making that big of an impact. We are losing ground, while in the East, people are coming to Christ in the face of persecution and violence.

Lots of this book resonated with me. I really connected with what Roberts said in the first part of the book. The second part deals a lot with how Roberts is reaching out to Muslims. I really recommend reading part 1 you can take or leave part 2. Part one will make you think about what and why of the local church practices. Much of what we do needs to be examined. Check out Lessons From the East and give it a read. If you are on church staff, read it with your staff. Give it a look.

Let Ministry Find You

Have you ever had an experience where God orchestrated more than you could ever dream up? I have to admit I find myself there often, mostly with work. I have been in several unique career opportunities the last several years. God has open doors for me to do ministry in unique places with unique people and share Christ with people. I will admit that I haven't always wanted to go where God is leading.  I have worked in a factory, as a Wildlife tech in group homes, in a plumbing wholesaler, at a call center and I've made pizza. In every place I've been, I've met believers that I could share and walk with and non-believers that I could share with.

Over the years people said that I needed to "find a ministry". I have tried and it's never worked. I have discovered that ministry did find me. Opportunities showed up when I was just being who I am. When I lived my faith on a daily basis, not looking for some place to find ministry,  it happened. People would talk to me they ask me things and we had chances to connect in the area of faith.

Here is my point. You need to pray seek God and just be yourself. God is doing things and working in people's lives and He wants to use you to help you and others experience God in powerful ways. He will connect you with the people you need to connect with all you have to do is be faithful. At the call center, the pizza place, the factory and the group home, I've made faith connections. It happened when I did pest control and it will continue to happen, not because of who I am, but because of who God is.

Where is He connecting you?

Maybe It's Shouldn't Be All About You!

We live in a pretty self centered world, and sometimes it seems like we live in a pretty self centered church. I see lots of talk about "me" and "I" and the focus on what I need, have or can get. We have a lot of ideas about what we are free to do in Christ, this was made pretty evident to me today. I saw a Facebook post from a prominent Bible teacher today that had a profanity in it. It wasn't a major profanity, it wasn't one of the big ones, but it's something I wouldn't allow my kids to say, I wouldn't say in front of my kids. You wouldn't say it in church, so I'm not sure why it seemed ok to be used in this write up. No one seemed to mind, except for one person who commented, who said that the message of the post was taken away from by what they considered a poor choice of words.

What transpired to the replies to this person gave me chills. It is what I fear that Western Christianity is turning into, and I'm positive that isn't a good thing. The person was rebuked for her statement, called a legalist, told she was uptight and needed to stop being judgmental. A few people agreed with her, but most seemed to rally around the author of the post and support the use of some colorful langauge. What do we do with this?

First let me say that I understand that we live in the time and land of the snowflake that gets offended by everything. We can't speak the name of Jesus without offending, the Bible is offensive the message of the Cross is offensive, the name of God offends. I get that, and we can't stop preaching or proclaiming Jesus. I understand that, and that is not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is when we begin to marginalize other Christians because our freedom sometimes is harsh and abrasive to their faith. This isn't a new issue. Paul dealt with this in 1 Corinthians 8. The problem in Corinth, among other things, we steak. Most of the steak you bought made the trip to the market from the pagan temple, where is was sacrificed to a pagan god. This made some believers think that maybe meat offered to demons wasn't a good idea. Other's thought it wasn't a big deal, it's not the steak's fault. Who was right? Paul says, "yes, you are both right". He simply said, if you can't eat it with a clear conscience, then don't. If you can, go ahead. Where it gets tricky is when you are eating it with a clear conscience while clouding someone else’s. Our freedom causing someone else to struggle with sin.

In verse 12 Paul says this behavior is sinning against Christ. To do something to violate another person's conscious, to make them stumble is to sin against Christ who died for them. That is a pretty big thing. I know I have been guilty, I have caused others to sin. I have used my freedom to make a mess of things. For those times I have caused others to sin and to stumble, I am sorry. When my pride and my love of self and my own freedom comes before someone else, I am sorry. Sometimes it's a simple as eating a salad, or not having that drink or not saying that word or talking about that movie. We need to not tell that joke or that story so we don't cause others to stumble. It's as simple as sometimes we need to put the other person first. We need to think about them and how we can support them. After all, isn't that what the cross of Christ is all about?  He put us first, we can be more like Jesus. It's not just about me being free, but about us, all of us being whole, clean and unified. We are the bride of Christ, together so let's work together to make sure we all get there together. A steak and a profanity just isn't worth it.

Do You Take Your Own Advice?

One of the things that I learned early on in ministry is that it's much easier to give advice than to take advice. Everyone will tell you what you should or shouldn't do. No one really want to be on the receiving end. It's always better to be the one giving the answers than the one getting told what to do. The truth is we all need some wisdom sometimes, we all need some help. The first and best place to turn is of course the Bible. Outside of that, where do we go? What do we do?

As a Life Coach, I help people in many of the areas they need help. I don't always give advice, I do more guiding and discovery (call me and I'll show you how it's done). I do give some advice, and I like to think its pretty advice. I try to get most of it from the Bible, which is the best place in the world to get advice.

I give some good advice, but it's not always easy to take that advice. It's easy to tell someone they need to forgive, harder to forgive. It's easy to tell someone to stop sinning, harder to stop yourself. It's easy to tell people o quit eating sugar, drinking coke, eat healthy and exercise, but harder to do yourself. It's easy to tell people to do the right thing, not as easy to follow.

Some days I have to stop and ask myself what would I tell someone else in my shoes. I have to ask myself to coach myself and give myself some advice, then I try to take it. Turns out that I give pretty good advice, as long as I found it in the Bible. Need some advice?

Accountability, Social Media and Drive by Judgement

I received a message from a stranger today who claims to follow me (even though I've never heard of him before) who decided that he knows I've made mistakes. He decided that I have no business acting like a Christian, trying to help people or posting truth on social media because of the mistakes I've made in the past. I was told that he heard that I have messed up in the past and said:

"I’m all for forgiveness and God using people who have been broken of their sins, repent and seek forgiveness and accountability. I believe God uses us in incredible ways, but I have not seen from you any humility in who you portray yourself to be. I am praying for you and hope that you will consider praying this over and really seeking God by allowing him to humble you."

This individual who I have never spoken with, I don't know and who doesn't really know me outside of seeing my posts on social media. Is this what we have come too by iron sharpening iron? Is this what we have descended too to have accountability? These are wise words, and I know that I continue to need to be humbled. I know that I need to continue to seek God, but why would an individual send me this message and then proceed to block me so I can't have a conversation with them? This individual claims they know who I "really" am, yet I have no idea who this person even is.

I will admit, when I was initially unable to respond to this individual, I was angry. I am constantly examining myself, I confess and repent, I share my weaknesses with my wife and some close friends. I share with my wife and some others when I struggle and when I fall. I have people in my life who really know me. When this individual claims they know who I "really" am, I struggled with confusion and frustration. How does a stranger know who I really am?

I wonder if this is what is going on with Christians today? What happens when we say we "pray about confronting someone" but none of it is in love. Are we just concerned with being right? Do we enjoy judging individuals so much that we just make comments on Facebook and then close the dialogue? I am grieved that I have no opportunity to even talk with this individual. They have said they haven't seen any humility in me, but I can't have any sort of relationship with this individual. There is no iron sharpening iron here, just stones being thrown. In the modern church, is the woman who was caught in adultery doomed? Will she be stoned to death while the words of Jesus are drowned out by the shouts of "I've prayed about this"? I hope this isn't what we are becoming.

I invite anyone to confront me in my sin and my error, but I ask that you don't it as a brother and not a drive by Pharisee. That never does anything, and to be honest, is probably just as sinful as the sin you are confronting. Like Paul, I know that I may be the worst of all sinners, but I choose to me forward and focus on Christ, not every mistake I've made. Just  thought.

But I'm Not Perfect...

Have you blown it? Ever in your life have you blown it? If you have said no, then you are lying. Maybe you have never done anything that has been a big mistake, but if you added up your little ones. What is someone could read your mind? What if we knew your heart and your desires? I bet we can all admit we are not perfect. We all have blown it to one degree or another, and many I know believe that God can't or won't use them because they have blown it.

Abraham, had a kid with his wife's servant....and it was her idea. David killed a man to cover up the affair with his wife. Solomon had. . . well a lot of wives. Jeremiah was depressed, Elijah moped for a while, the Old Testament is full of broken people. The New Testament is full of broken people. The 1st century was full of broken people, like Augustine and Anthony. The Reformation, the Great Awakening, they all had lots of broken people. The church today is filled with broken people. The guy writing this blog is broken and flawed and has some major problems.

People say God can't use them because of the mistakes they have made. That's just not true. God uses you in your weakness and through your mistakes. Paul stood and watch Stephen get stoned to death. He still used him. He can use you. He can use me. Even during dark and hard times, I'm reminded that God uses me in the lives of people. Tonight, as I was with a client I was able to answer questions and teach them about the Bible. I shared a little with a atheist and a third individual who I am not aware of where he is in regards to his faith. God used me tonight, even though I am a big failure.

Let God use you. Share what you can, tell people what God is doing for you. Help them by discipling them, encouraging, them being a friend. Even on your worst days, God can do His best.