How do you know that you are right with God?
The Bible teaches that it is appointed for each person to die once and then face judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Death is an inevitable reality that can strike unexpectedly, without regard for one's race, financial status, culture, or life experiences. The passage in Hebrews reminds us that after death, we will stand before God, our Creator, to be judged. This judgment will be based solely on the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as Romans 2:16, Romans 3:6, 1 Timothy 4:1, and 1 Peter 4:1-5 clearly state. I would like to share what I have learned about this upcoming judgment from studying the Word of God.
Contrary to popular belief, humans aren't naturally good, as many assume. According to the Bible, every individual is born as a sinner (Psalms 51:5). None of us can claim to be righteous, and we can't genuinely seek God without His help.
"What is sin? The word sin simply means to miss God’s mark (standard) by who we are, what we do, and what we fail to do. In these areas, we are guilty before God. We sin when we fall short of God’s standards. The primary expression of this standard is the Ten Commandments, which are found in Exodus chapter 20. The first and greatest commandment is that we are called to love the Lord with our hearts and not have any other gods or idols before Him. That means we can never have anything or anyone in our lives that is more important to us than God. Yet we all have things that we are more devoted to than Him. This is called an idol. Idols are born out of our sinful desires and can take the form of our jobs/careers, our desire for money and prosperity, or even our love for people and ourselves more than God. This is all sin.
What about taking the Lord’s name in vain in profanity or using His name in jest? This is also a sin. I have failed thousands of times over on all these points. And that’s not to mention the seven commandments we also fail to keep.
Galatians 3:22 states that we are all guilty of sin and deserving of death, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we can receive the promise of eternal life.
In John chapter 3, Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about the importance of being born again if one wants to see the kingdom of God. Jesus emphasized this truth a total of three times within the next four verses. It's clear that Jesus considered being born again as an absolute requirement for us to be righteous in God's sight and enter heaven.
Being born again doesn't mean getting baptized with water, reading the Bible, attending church or being kind to others. These are all things that true believers do as a result of being born again, but doing these things alone doesn't make us right with God. What matters is the source of our actions. Are we doing them out of our own strength, or are we allowing Jesus to live in and through us?
During His ministry on earth, Jesus taught with great authority and fulfilled all of God's commandments as originally intended. However, to truly please God, we need new hearts. Fortunately, God had already put a plan in place to provide an escape from judgment. In Ezekiel chapter 36:25, God promises that He will do something for us; He will give us a new heart and a new spirit, enabling us to keep His commandments the way He intended.
Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God promises to cleanse us from our sins and give us a new heart and spirit. He will put His laws within us and cause us to follow them. This is all made possible by the work of God and impossible for us to achieve on our own.
Even with a new heart, we must depend entirely on God's grace to work within us continually, which is known as sanctification. As we obey God with His help, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. Every person who enters heaven has experienced this second birth, which occurs in the spiritual realm through the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The Bible states that confessing Jesus as Lord and believing that God raised Him from the dead leads to salvation. At the moment of belief, we are born again and declared righteous before God.
Before being born again, we are like a caterpillar that has not yet transformed into a butterfly. We crawl slowly on the ground instead of flying through the air, and we fail to reveal our true God-given beauty. We are born incapable of relating to or responding to God in a true relationship until we receive this new birth from heaven. We need to be brought to spiritual life by the Creator of life himself. We have a great need for God to breathe the breath of spiritual life into us, just as we need Him to give us our natural life. The first birth (natural) is not by our choice but rather the will of God, for no man has or can will himself into existence. However, the second birth (being born again) is offered to whosoever will believe. Whosoever dares to humble himself or herself and truly look for the Lord to help them, He will be found by them at that very moment!
I struggled with giving my life to the Lord in my teenage years. Despite going down to the altar and asking Jesus into my heart, I felt like nothing had changed. I became frustrated and doubted if any of it was real. But on the night I was truly saved, everything was different. I wholeheartedly sought the Lord and received a new heart from God. This change is an instantaneous, supernatural work of God in a person's heart. However, it's important to remember that nothing happens in our hearts if we still want to indulge in sinful habits, behaviors, and attitudes without truly repenting of our sins. Therefore, let's seek after God with all our hearts, and we'll find Him.
Let's imagine a loving dad who gives his son a weekly allowance. Although the dad wants more for his son, the son is content with things as they are because he wants to stay in control and live his life the way he thinks is best. It's reasonable to expect that at some point, the son will be required to give his father an account of how he spent his allowance. He will answer for the decisions he made, and the consequences of those decisions will be on him. Some of us are content with living below what God created us to be because we're calling the shots. I was in this boat myself. I felt I could only trust myself, and I experienced betrayal, hurt, and disappointment. I didn't want to open up to God because I was afraid of what might happen and what He might require of me. So, I ran from Him in my heart. However, in His love, He kept pursuing me (Praise God!), and He's doing the same in your life even now. If we keep running from God, we'll regret it, and the consequences will be more than anything we could imagine. What is at stake for each of us is eternal life. The truth is that hell awaits those who reject such a great and costly salvation.
During Jesus' earthly ministry, He often asked people what they wanted Him to do for them. Even in cases where the request seemed obvious, He would still ask, "What do you want Me to do for you?" In every one of these encounters, whether it was a blind man, a cripple, or a woman with chronic internal bleeding, the request was for something that the person could not do for themselves, but rather a miracle that only Jesus could perform.
Today, we are in the same boat. God requires something of us that we cannot give in our own strength - our absolute surrender to Him. Surrendering goes against our natural instinct to survive, but we have only one way to live eternally: by dying to that natural instinct. We must admit where we are and ask Jesus to change us. This leads us to true repentance, and as a result, we turn away from our sins and turn to Jesus. He grants us the ability and the courage to give what is most precious to us: our hearts, our lives, our time, and our strength to the One who is worthy of all.
Ultimately, the solution is simple yet impossible to achieve on our own. We must give up control of our lives, trust God, and receive what we need most: Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!
Jesus said that whoever gives up his life for His sake will gain eternal life. If you believe in Jesus Christ, ask yourself if you know Him and if He knows you. Is He Lord of your life? If the answer is no, you can repent of your sins and ask for forgiveness. Trust Him with all your heart, and you will be justified before God. Remember, tomorrow is not promised to any of us; today, if we hear His voice, we should not harden our hearts. If you still have questions or want to discuss this more, I am more than willing to listen and help. Remember that God is good, and He loves you more than you know.