You must ask Jesus to be your
Saviour. You accomplish that by asking Him to forgive you of all your sins.
When you ask Him to be your Saviour and to forgive you, the request must be
from the heart. You cannot just ramble off a few words and go on your merry
way. At the core of every appeal for forgiveness is
remorse. If you have remorse for your sinful state, you will receive
God's forgiveness.
After you commit yourself in words to Jesus, you then begin to follow Him with your actions. Do this by reading His Word and implementing His teachings into your life. If He says, "Love your neighbor," then love your neighbor. If He says, "Do not commit adultery," then do not commit adultery. Follow His teachings as best you can until the day you join Him in Heaven.
Jesus foretold that a small number of people would choose
to be saved: "Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto
life, and few there be that find it" (Mat. 7:14).
The first reason people do not
make it to Heaven is because they put off salvation or neglect it altogether.
Too many are more worried with the cares of this life than they are of the one
choice that will last for all eternity.
The second reason people don’t
go to Heaven is that they reject Christ's gift of eternal life. People's pride
and unwillingness to face up to their need for a Saviour holds them back. Some
reject salvation because they do not understand how His death 2,000 years ago
could affect them now.
The third
reason few people make Heaven their home is
that they trust in a salvation that is not based on the blood of Jesus Christ.
Some think, "If I've been a good person all my life, then He'll let me in." It
does not work that way. The Bible says “you are saved by God’s grace, because of
faith in Jesus Christ. No one is saved by their own goodness or deeds, so no one
can take credit for their own salvation”.
The cares of this world do not compare with the importance
of being prepared for the world to come. If you missed out on the eternal bliss
of heaven and ended up in hell, the extremeness of your mistake would be
impossible to measure.
As the world falls apart all around us, we should be
praying more, studying God's Word, and sharing our resources with others. When
you go to be with the Lord, the only items that will go with you into glory, are
the works you have done in response to having accepted Jesus Christ as your
Saviour. Your house, car, money, and unsaved friends will remain behind.
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