My Mother loved the Lord and we were blessed enough to spend times worshipping Him together – those were special times.
One afternoon when I came to have my afternoon chat with her, I noticed she seemed a little concerned. I asked her what was on her mind and she answered, “How can a believer be certain they will go to heaven?”
Recalling a scripture verse, I pointed her to the book of 1 Peter which tells us, that because of God’s great mercy, we have an inheritance coming to us which is safely stored in heaven – guaranteed just for us!.
Let’s have a quick Look (1Pet 1:3-4):
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
Other scriptures talk of this inheritance as being a ‘glorified body’.
Reserved in heaven for you. Isn’t that amazing? – A special body which is:-
Imperishable – meaning it will not decay – ever!
It is undefiled – meaning it’s pure and not tainted with sickness or pain.
It will not fade away – meaning it’s an eternal body
And…
it is reserved in heaven for YOU!
How on earth could this all come about we may ask? Well… seeing as this is our personal new hope guranteed, let’s have a look and see.
When Jesus was raised from the dead after taking away our sin and also our sinful nature (which is that engine driving us to want to sin), the scriptures tell us, that He was raised up to be seated at the right hand side of God in heavenly places (Eph.1:20). Now, the same book goes on to say that you and I were raised up with Him and seated ‘in Christ’ in heavenly places at the right hand of God (Eph.2:6). This is really an incredible scripture. What’s very interesting, is that it is written in the past tense – in other words it has already taken place! – (raised us up and seated us!).
My Mom was getting very interested in the discussion at this point but was still looking somewhat perplexed. “What’s wrong” I asked – “isn’t this great news?” – she agreed that it certainly was – “but…” she said… “how can we be sure this has already happened?”
Well… back to the scriptures we went. We looked at a scripture that shows that, as we hear the message of the Gospel – and believed it – we are then sealed ‘in Him’ with the Holy Spirit of promise, which, the scripture goes on to say, is given to us a pledge of our inheritance (2 Cor.1:21-22). A ‘pledge’ means a guarantee. We are guaranteed of our inheritance – as long as the Holy Spirit is within us.
So…. Did we hear the true Gospel message and believe it? If so, then we have the Holy Spirit ‘sealed’ in us – not just present every now and then – but sealed within us. That’s an incredible truth – well worth spending a bit of quiet time thinking about.
This is a truth we need to meditate on as much as we can – and believe it! Obedience to God’s word will then begin to happen day by day – automatically – not by our strength.
The challenge we have, is that daily, we try to be ‘good’ in our own strength. We try to please God in our own power. Now, we’ve discussed this point before – (1Cor.1:30) – but it’s really God who brought us into Christ – by His mercy and grace and therefore HE gives us the means to learn obedience, by the power of His Holy Spirit.
This truth is further testified to in the scriptures where Paul goes on to say that the Holy Spirit will change us (Titus 3:5-6) Daily, we are being regenerated and renewed by the washing of the Holy Spirit – bit by bit.
So the question now is…how do we know if we have the Holy Spirit within us – not only so we are guaranteed of inheritance, but also, we will be renewed and regenerated daily?
Let’s look at these answers:
Do we hear a little voice inside telling us the difference between right and wrong?
Do we hear a little voice opening up God’s word to us?
Do we hear a little voice teaching us about God and giving us a desire to follow Him?
Do we display some of the fruit of the Spirit? (in other words, Love, Joy, peace, patience, kindness)
If we’ve answered ‘Yes’ to any of these answers – then the Holy Spirit is present within us and we have a guarantee of our inheritance. This is our personal NEW HOPE, guaranteed!.
It is really the prayer of my heart that the Lord will reveal this wonderful guarantee of our new hope – it will change the way we live here on earth!
May the Lord bless you all – until next time – when we spend more time with the Master…..
From: “…time with the Master…”