“That You May Know…”


BIBLE READING:  1 John 5

                Several years ago, as I sat in a circle with my fellow teens at a church devotion, I was asked the following question from the devotional leader, “Matt, are you going to heaven?”  In what I thought would have been the typical answer from a young teen, I replied “Well…I sure hope I am, but ultimately that choice is up to Jesus!”  His response caught me off guard, “Matt, I’m surprised at you!  Do you really not know if you are going to heaven or not?”  Again, I replied, “I hope so…but God is the judge”.  What the youth leader said next, still shakes me to my core, “Matt do you believe a person can know if they are lost?”  “Of Course, they can.”, I proudly exclaimed.  “Then if you know you are lost, wouldn’t you be able to know if you are saved?”.   That night may very well have affected my decision to be in ministry today.  You see, we know that when Christ returns, He will judge us on the deeds that we have done while in this earth.  Then He will pronounce on us our final judgment of either heaven or hell; Heaven to those that are faithful and Hell to those that were not (2 Corinthian 5.10). Yet John gives us reason to have a confidence in knowing what that judgement will be, based on how we have lived.  As John closes out the book of I John, he said “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” (I John 5.13).   That word “know” indicates “to know from observation”.  The truth is, that based on what we have “observed” in the Scriptures and by what we have “observed” within our self, we should already have a pretty good idea of where we stand in relation to eternity.   Therefore, I ask you the same question that was asked to me so many years ago, “Are you going to heaven?”


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