It's up to you

It’s up to you. It’s your decision. This is a decision only you can make. No one can make it for you. No one can force it on you. This decision will turn your world upside down. It will affect your life in all aspects. The decision you have to make has consequences, eternal consequences.  This decision you must make is to accept Christ or reject Christ.

I think it’s safe to say that most people, Christian and secular, have heard all or part of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Blah, blah, blah”, and “So what” is what secular people say. Some Christians don’t understand and so are on the same level as secular people too.

What Christ did for us was from unconditional love and of innocent blood.  Raise your hand if you would be nailed and hung on a cross for the wrongs (sin) of others so that they may live.  I don’t see any hands.  That’s okay, I didn’t expect any and my hand was down too. Look at it this way, would you take the punishment of death for a murderer so that he can walk free? I assume it would be no.

See the difference here? Christ laid His life down for all of us for all the sins we did and would commit so that we may have an opportunity to spend eternity with Him if we accept Him in our heart. This is the choice we must make, to accept Him or not- it’s up to you to decide.

Let’s say that you don’t want to believe, or have faith, that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose up after three days to give us the opportunity to have eternal life with Him. That’s okay I guess, for you. It doesn’t mean your life will crumble and it doesn’t affect my faith at all. You may still be successful in life, have a great family, a big house, etc.  Your life may be one of goodness and compassion for others. You may volunteer for the needy. You may do everything right in life. Then you get old and die and your spirit is released from your body and the decision you made here on Earth while alive determines where you go.

You may believe in God, but only as a notion of something greater than the world or yourself. You may feel that by living a good life it will get you through to the pearly gates.  So when you grow old and die, you will be surprised at what your eternity will be without Christ. 

In your life, right now or in the future before you pass, it is up to you to accept or deny Christ as your Lord and Savior.  It doesn’t matter how good of a person you are, were, or will be in this life. It’s all nil and as valuable as a peso unless you have accepted Christ into your heart and life. “Whoa- wait a second”, you may ask!  “Who are you to tell me what God to worship or what it takes to go to heaven?” Because I am a Christian who knows Christ is proven as true in the Bible, knows the truth and the way to eternity in heaven because I’ve accepted Him.

I made the decision to accept Christ in my heart and life.  I was like them, those secular and unsaved people, aimlessly wondering through life. Yet, when after many times of being introduced to Christ and denying Him, I finally decided to invite Him into my life.  I want to offend you and tell you that you are stupid if you pass up this opportunity with Christ.  You have been, at some point or another, introduced to Christ or have contemplated your destiny in the afterlife of where you will go after you die- to heaven or hell.  I will offend you some more- you will go to hell without accepting Christ. I know, I know, hell sounds like a harsh word to say in the politically correct world we live in now, but it is meant to be harsh. When you think of hell, you should have horrid images and feelings of fear.  Now you don’t want that kind of eternity do you? 

Your life without Christ may seem ok or you may think it’s great but I tell you that you are wrong.  I’m betting that there is something missing in your life. It isn’t a thing, but an internal thing you are feeling inside your gut or heart.  You may have an emptiness in your heart that you think can be filled with the things of the physical world, such as money, material possessions, life style changes (bad ones), drugs, etc., that you try to do to fill that emptiness and that internal thing you feel you are missing or are empty of.

I’ll tell you this, from personal experience and from the testimonies of others, that feeling of emptiness you feel inside, that thing you feel you are missing to make you life happy and complete, that is Jesus tugging at your heart. He is knocking at the door of your soul. This is clearly stated in Revelations 3:20 from Jesus:

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

Christ is ever ready to come into your heart to fill the void you have that you can’t put your finger on. He is there knocking on the door of your heart, waiting for you to answer. That feeling you have that you are missing something in your life is Jesus knocking on your heart, just waiting for you to open and invite Him in. It’s up to you though to either answer the door to let Christ in or to keep and lock that door to keep Jesus away.  You can’t deny that He is real. You can’t deny that He exists, but you can deny his presence in your life. 

I often wonder why people don’t answer that knocking door.  Jesus never gives up knocking at your door, but yet people won’t open it. I believe people are scared to because they will have to give up their worldly pleasures and will have to change their lifestyle. This is absolutely true.  When you accept Christ and begin to live your life for Him, you will change. The change isn’t bad- though secular people think it will be.  You must ask yourself that if you accept Christ into your heart and life, would He make you miserable or give you peace and joy?

Having Christ in your life isn’t a burden as you may think. It’s freedom to have Him in your heart.  Some folks still ignore the whispers and knocking from Jesus because they love themselves and the world so much that they couldn’t imagine not being able to have the so called ‘freedom’ the physical world offers them.  They put their spiritual wellbeing with Christ second to the world.  Their priorities are backwards.

This isn’t limited to secular people only. Some people that claim to be Christians still live in the world and put their faith in Christ second to the world.  Sure they go to church, but that is where it begins and ends.  The only verses they see are the ones the pastor puts up on the projection screen. Some don’t even bring Bibles with them.  These so called Christians are only Sunday morning Christians.  After church they go back to their worldly lives and don’t even crack open their Bibles during the week. They don’t pray and worship the Lord, and don’t study the word of God; they are only Christians on Sunday.

So you secular people see these Christians and wonder what the difference between them and you is- not much. I’ll tell you that being a Christian isn’t just going to church.  It’s much, much more.  When you truly accept and have Jesus in your heart, you life will change and will be turned upside down from your worldly ways. Don’t worry, this is a good flip in your life. You will be awakened spiritually. Your thoughts and actions will change, as well as your priorities.

Accepting Christ is easy, denying Him is a conscious and purposely made decision that you make.  If you deny Him, you are denying He is the author of creation. You are saying that you don’t believe in a correct path to heaven. You, most importantly, deny your heart with the fulfillment of vast love and compassion for you from Him.

With Christ, there is power in Him for your life.  By denying Him, you are refuting his omnipotence in this universe and in your existence on this Earth.  Christ’s supremacy of grace, mercy, and love for you is something that secular people fail to recognize and therefore miss out on the greatest prize one could ever get: Love and forgiveness from Christ. 

Ultimately, the decision to get saved or not is yours.  Secular people and some misdirected ‘Christians’ have a choice to make- accept or deny- it’s up to you. If you aren’t saved (secular and those that only go to church and have never accepted Christ into their lives) it’s up to you to make the decision.  You don’t know when your life will end. You don’t know when the clock will stop ticking for you, so the importance of this decision is great and needs to be made now.  It’s an eternal decision you are making so choose wisely.

I gander that the world is holding you back- I mean the physical and fallen world we live in. As a Christian, you will be living in a world that is contrary to what you believe and what you know.  Everything the world has to offer sinfully will be seen through spiritual discernment that you’ll attain and grow into after you’re saved.

If you want to go to heaven, there is a tradeoff of accepting Christ. The tradeoff is the worldly pleasures and sinful ways that you have been living for endless love. This may make your blood pressure go up a bit because right now you are imagining giving up the joys and sinful pleasures in life that aren’t in line with a Christian lifestyle. This is the decision point for you. You’re at a fork in the road. One path leads to heaven with Christ and the other leads to hell without Christ.  Use your imagination a bit to see both paths.  Which one do you want to be on?  I don’t know of anyone who wants to choose hell and I gather most rational people would rather go to heaven. 

So… what are you going to choose? Which path does your heart lead you to?  It’s up to you to make that decision, but choose wisely: Christ or hell.