Before You is a Choice ~

If you were to die tonight are you assured of your eternity, 

where you will spend it?

So many of us maintain respectable morals and values, 

we are good people, we do good things for others.

Is it enough?

The Bible tells us it's not.

~

Happy doing our own thing.

Money and relationships are both in check.

Successful, got all the stuff, house, car, pool,

travel, friends, family, done deal.......

but where will you spend eternity.

or

Happiness, depends on the day.

Relationships are on and off, always worried about money.

Hoping the car has no problems, how will I feed the kids?

Barely hanging on,

relationship ends.....how will I survive?

Will I always be alone?

Why is this happening to me?

When will it ever get better?

Where will you spend eternity?

Christianity, not a religion of do's and don'ts.

Rather a relationship with someone bigger than I.

Christian's often given a bad rap due to those radical's

behaving and judging in a manner that is so NOT Christian.

Christian's, we mess up daily. 

Some are hypocrites, liars, even self righteous people.

Not perfect by any means, but we should be striving to be better,

more like Him. 

It's why we need Him, because we do fail in some way daily.

I found myself wanting that piece of the puzzle that would fill me up,

secure in this life, promised an eternal life

when I leave this world... to be worried about tomorrow no more.

A peace within that I was forever lacking.

Found in the One true God.

I became a Christian in the 5th grade.

I lived my life praying when I needed something and believing God

was always with me, and He was.

What I didn't do was truly make Him Lord of my life. I continued
to live as though nothing had changed to anyone watching.

I still found myself

empty, worried,  silently  starving for some inner peace, 

for true hope.

Thinking I could live my life under my own terms doing what I wanted.

It wasn't enough, though I tried for years to prove it otherwise.

I was running the race but it was the wrong race.

Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
 let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. 
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,

I was

lost in what was "correct' according to the world.

Being a good person, having some fun, if it 

feels good do it....

 all that should be required to be happy...that's the story 

the world was telling me.

Still empty.

~

The message of Jesus to us, 

is to come to Him with

 the faith of a child, no preconceived notions,

no worry of what anyone else might think.

 He wants us to unlearn what the world has promised us

and 

relearn life as it was marked out for us to live it fully

for Him.

There is nothing you have to change before you start to live the life

God had planned for you.

It requires only that you believe and you ask Him to be Lord of you life,

and mean it.
Studying what His book says and living it !

What changed for me.

 The world wasn't there for me when I needed what no other person

on earth could give me.

That night when I learned, 

I could not rely on my own strength, because all strength was lost.

Stripped of all control as I watched a team of Doctors and Nurses attempting 

to save my Father's life.

I needed God in that very moment,

 someone much larger than myself, to remain on my feet,

 to be my strength, the strength

I was going to need in the hours and days to come.

I needed God in that single moment that I had feared
would one day come, 

that moment

when my life would be a 

a life

 without my Father in it.

I made God the Lord of my life that day,

no longer attempting to guide myself.

It's in those difficult times you realize, you, in your own strength

are not enough.

Everything changed for me that day.

Days later I said good bye to my sweet Dad...

 That was bearable only because with that last breath of his,

I had God's promise I would see my Dad again.

I will spend eternity in heaven, one day to be reunited with, now, both of  my parents.

Without giving my life to Christ, starting new again,

 I can't imagine 

how fragile my life would be....

He will become your strength in every situation if you let Him. 

I'm aware there are many who do not believe what the Bible says.

Can I tell you, many have set out to prove it as false and have failed to do so?

Those very non believers whose life mission was to prove it a lie,

in the end many became Christians themselves.

(Read "More than a Carpenter"  by Josh McDowell)

I know there are doubters of the Christian faith....

When pondering the question of  your eternity, 

consider the possibility that He is the way, He is the truth.

What do you have to loose if you accept Him as the one true God
and discover in the end it was just a story?

You are no worse off.

Versus,

believing it's false and

continuing to live how the world wants you to,

only to discover its

true.
....Only it's too late for an eternity, with Him?

The alternative is an

 eternity so horrible you can't imagine,

if the story is true....

I have complete faith that I can believe without seeing;

 He is real and so are His promises.

I  have countless examples of moments in my life that can only

be explained as the hand of God....

I have found that piece of the puzzle.

I hope for all of those I care about and those I've yet to meet

to  have the promise of eternity in Heaven.

John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
 but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, 
for God’s wrath remains on them.

it's what echos from my heart today.....and always.