Sunday, April 11, 2010

How can I avoid going to Hell?

A very pertinent question in these times when the entire human race seems to be heading in the direction of Hell! it is not the claim to believe in Christ or the claim that we worship God that takes us to Heaven. The claims we make mean nothing as long as we do not change our ways. 

We know in our hearts, what is wrong in the sight of God. We know it when we sin. Long before we sin, we sense that we are about to do something which is not right before God. But we indulge ourselves. We allow the devil to deceive us with the lie that we'll always get away with it; that our God is an all forgiving God; a loving and merciful God Who will always forgive us when we ask. We know this is a lie, but accept it and go on sinning in the hope that we'll later pray to God for forgiveness and change our ways. We'd change our ways later; always later! Some other time!

In all these the devil laughs at us. He laughs as we call ourselves Christians and believers. He laughs as we attend religious services. He laughs as we pride ourselves in belonging to one religious group or the other, each one believing that it stands a better chance of making Heaven than the others.


He laughs because he knows that we miss the one important point; the point made by Christ when He said; unless a man be born again, unless he becomes a new creature, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  
 
Hence, Satan watches as we heed his own advice and indulge in every kind of sin imaginable; lies, fornication, adultery, envy, jealousy, arrogance, avarice etc. He's amazed that we can still think of going to Heaven with the kind of lives we are living, but he's happy nevertheless and he expects that We'll keep him company when the time comes...in Hell
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But we can avoid going to Hell. We can defeat the devil, if only we try. Christ has given us everything we need. He has also said that we cannot be tempted beyond our means. This implies that we will always have enough strength to overcome temptation. However we must have the desire to overcome sin. Without the wish to overcome sin, we will not be able to use the strength given to us by God. 

We must go beyond claiming to be children of God to actually being children of God. We must start now to live as His children, doing His Will through Christ our Lord and Saviour Who strengthens us. Hell would therefore not be our portion, but instead, we would be heading for eternal bliss in our real home, Heaven.

May the grace of God be upon us.