For some people, they want to have everything now. They want to have the best things that they can attain, now, for themselves. They want a brand new car, or a giant house, so they go and take out a loan from the bank to get it immediately, and then spend the next ten, twenty, thirty years paying off those loans. All because they wanted it now.
I have certainly felt this was as a child, as I’m sure many of you have as well: As children, even we see something such as a small package of cookies at a convenience store, we want it so badly! Our parents might tell us that if we can wait a short while we could get a far larger bag of cookies from the grocery store for the same price, but No!! we want those cookies now so we end up getting that smaller, less cookie-filled bag which will very shortly become emptied, and quite possibly a feeling of regret as we realize that we could have had so much more.
As simple as this example is, it is extremely similar to the choices that people make in regards to their faith, or in some instances, I guess, a lack of it. Ask the large majority of people today if they would like to live forever in a place a paradise and most likely most of them would say that they would want that. But upon learning that they need to follow a few simple rules and be patient as they wait for it, there are some people who decide that they do not want to wait for that, that they do not want to follow those rules, and it is these people who will not receive the promise that they could have.
Romans 8:23-25 “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”
In order to get from one city to another in your car, you need to stay on that road they leads to it. You cannot turn off onto a different road that leads a completely different direction and expect to get to your intended destination. You have to stay on that road. WE have to stay on the narrow path that leads to Christ if we want to live forever someday with Him in His kingdom.
Depending on how you look at it, life is a multiple choice test, however, there is only one choice that is the correct one that will lead a person to salvation. God gives everyone on this Earth the ability to make their own decisions, and it is up to that person if they are going to make the right one. It is up to that person to decide, What is most important in my life? Is it Jesus? or is it the temptations and pleasures of the world? Is a person going to give their life wholly to the Lord and His Word, or are they going to be like a child choosing cookies, and choosing to live for themselves?
There is only one way to Heaven. It is through Jesus and His teachings. There is no other way. Can you be the one who can deny themselves and come and follow Christ, waiting patiently for that day?
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 