Having Confidence in My Relationship with Jesus (from the extra chapter, “Not the End”)

Although it isn’t as deeply rooted as I would like, I have a secure confidence that says I would give up anything for Him.

My identity isn’t in myself. My true identity is found in Him. I have that peace about my relationship to God as an adopted son – I’m royalty (John 1;13, Revelation 19:16).

I know I’m going to heaven. No one, says the Lord in John 10:28-29, can take me out of His hand. He emphasizes that promise, repeating it twice within three verses.

“… and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

The neat thing about Christianity is that I didn’t need to get cleaned up first. I could have been a pornographer, pimp, adulterer, seasoned thief, foul-mouthed gossiper, anger management failure, or a drug addict. Who cares? Jesus didn’t.

After asking Jesus to rule my life, I kept sinning. As a Christian, I’m still allowed to sin. Pretty weird, eh?

The difference is that I now have a relationship with Jesus and that my sins bother me. I keep working on them with Him.

Non-Christians may know that they sin, but they neglect the Jesus as Lord and Savior part. He’s kind of a big deal.

Sure, Jesus hates sin. But sin didn’t push Him away from His desire to keep me from hell. My pride did block Him at every turn until love broke through my deteriorating defenses.

Amazingly, Jesus now even considers me His friend. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you…” (John 15:15-16).

I can’t predict what Jesus will do next in my life, but I can look back, and it gives me great hope and courage as I face my future.

When I’m broken and dependent upon Him, the sky literally is the limit. I picture His graces and mercy in a giant warehouse of balloons, like those stored in the ceilings of the Democratic and Republic conventions. In this case, His balloons could fill Texas. He can’t wait to let the balloons fall so I can pop them and bask in what’s inside – His presence I sense in the quiet of the morning, people, voices, moments, embraces and more. I can’t reach those balloon blessings when my eyes are on me.

To keep my attention on Him, the Lord provides a Code of Conduct in the “fruits of the Spirit” verses. I joke with my family that I don’t like the verses because I fall short on any given day:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:21-23)

The Lord brands His Word in my heart to stretch me. I’m to love Him with all my heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love all neighbors (Mark 12:30-31). Romans 8:13 calms me with the assurance that the Holy Spirit has my back and helps me put to “death the deeds of the body.” Sanctification is a process leading to perfection that may not arrive until the moment I walk into heaven.

If I’m going to stay close to the Lord, I must be devoted to His Word (Psalm 119). In John 15, He’s all about abiding in Him. He wants me so tied to Him that my life is transformed by His voice and presence. Often, that’s really the Holy Spirit working in my life. Where He ends and Jesus begins is a mystery I don’t dwell on that too much.

In his book, Free at Last, Tony Evans encourages Christians to live victoriously. The Lord, he writes, will ensure that we’re as productive as possible. “Being a Christian isn’t just hanging onto Jesus, drawing life from Him, and not producing anything. Even productive believers undergo pruning to increase their fruit-bearing.”

Now that He’s with me, Jesus wants me to ensure that I have the right foundation to see me through the tough times. In the Bible, He tells the story of homes built on sand and the rock.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell – and great was its fall.”
(Matthew 7:24-29)

The topics we cover and the teachings accumulate and I begin to wonder how much of a change a guy can really make.

After I suppress my whining and negativity, I put what I read and experience into perspective. They’re goals, not rigid performance grades.

Looking toward being a better follower of Jesus gives me something fresh to think about and to aspire to in some capacity.

My goal is to be a street evangelist, but it’s been a long, long time since I approached a total stranger.

What kind of Christian do you hope to be as you grow in your walk with Christ?

As a model, look at the words of John Wesley, a famed evangelist and founder of Methodism:

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.”

Lofty?

Not really.

It’s about setting the bar kind of high so you can look up.

I once heard that God isn’t looking so much for our ability as He is our availability.

Lord, please help me make myself available to you and sort out the pressures and priorities of my life.

Unfortunately, good people go to hell.

Like me, do you wonder how nice people manage to care for the world without knowing Jesus and living in the power of the Holy Spirit?

I lose sight of the answer at times.

God isn’t going to zap an unbeliever who is about to lend a hand or start a great cause.

I’m learning to remember that goodness or righteousness should reflect a love of God, acknowledge that He’s at work in us and that He should be getting the glory.

When a caring person helps someone in need (i.e. pays for their groceries at a store), how can the giver’s heart align with the Lord’s if there isn’t a connection in the first place? How can he or she be grateful that God provided the opportunity to be His hands and His feet?

For my part, I’m just grateful that God allows me to be good. And sometimes I remember to reflect on what He’s allowed me to do.

If I’m good, God gets the credit. Positive things he accomplishes in me constantly clash with my sins.

John Piper, a noted Christian leader and author, goes a little deeper with this. He acknowledges that nice deeds by unbelievers reflect what God teaches us in Scripture. But the relationship with God is the missing part.

In one of his teachings, “Total Depravity,” Piper explains it this way:

“It is not done out of reliance on him or for his glory. He is not trusted for the resources, though he gives them all. Nor is his honor exalted, even though that’s his will in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31). Therefore even these ‘good’ acts are part of our rebellion and are not ‘good’ in the sense that really counts in the end—in relation to God.”

I think about a lot of verses – and put my life in perspective. In John 15, Jesus says we can’t really do anything without Him (I figure He’s talking about anything of His will that has merit or is rooted in love).

In Luke 18:19, Jesus tells the rich young ruler: “No one is good – except God alone.”

Travis Carden, a Christian, compiled the “Total Depravity Verse List.”

It’s not easy reading, but it’s the truth. Look at the references to sinners, disobedience, schemers, evil, wickedness, envy, deceit, pride, foolishness and many more.

Humanity benefits from unbelievers and Christians alike. I just need to remember more often that God should be the one who gets the credit.

Most people are going to hell. Most people won’t get the fact that Christianity requires a denial of self, a turning away from sin and a love of Jesus – accepting His sacrifice for sin. It’s a simple prescription for heaven. But Matthew 7:13 says most people will miss it:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

We want to hope for the best, think about God and His mercy and the fact that He’s loving. The fact is, He gave us a free will. Our sin makes us His enemy. And He’s all about justice. We’ll face the punishment of eternal separation from God for a single sin.

It should sound scary. And yet, don’t most people remain apathetic about their souls and fate? They do because they live the self-deception – literally. They’re so focused on themselves that they don’t think God will send them to hell. He will. He must.

One audience member talked about how Gilbert’s book is her Bible. Wow…how sad. Apparently, she encountered some god during her journey. Maybe it was my God through some spiritual connection. But she clearly missed the point because only Jesus provides true, stable, lasting access to God. She refers to God as God “the perfection that absorbs.” Well, He’s perfect, but salvation isn’t about having some secret moment with God and all is well.  God, she says, involves the “the divinity within you…that’s where God lives.” Yeah, whatever.

Books like hers and mine can be paths to heaven, but hell and heaven await us. Will we meet Jesus before we die or just go to hell? Will He matter given what He accomplished on the cross? He’s the source of our true peace. We get the Holy Spirit when we choose Jesus. I’m happy for her, being content, having simple pleasures. One day, I hope she meets her Savior and she uses her author status to give Him glory.

I was glad in a sense that my son heard the comment in 2007 about a young girl’s skateboarding ability. It demonstrated how he should never act and revealed a bad streak in his otherwise jovial friend.

Whether that was racisim or just an ignorant remark by a teen who hangs out with black friends, the truth is that pure-bred racism can lead to heaven.

The chapter explains that you need to live through your evil and essentially make a record of it before you can come to grips with it and have a fighting chance of reaching out to Jesus for His forgiveness.

Are you a racist? What about your friends?

The Him is Jesus. He’s the ultimate path to heaven. You may go through a lot of things. You may meet a lot of people. In the end, it’s just you and Jesus or you without Jesus.

I made 52 Paths To Heaven to reflect my personal journey and touch on issues that may be foreign to me but not you (like abortion).

We like to think of prayers and preachers and the Bible as our guiding light. The truth is, the Holy Spirit is our light and He’s authorized to do whatever God wants to reach us – no matter how high we go with our pride or how low we go with our depravity.

You’ll be able to order to book soon. In the meantime, drop me a line if you’re interested in the book or the topic of what we do to get to heaven. I’m eager to know how you feel.

The book should be out December 10th or sooner.

–Mike