If you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?
Perhaps you have been in church most of your life. Maybe you were baptized, joined a church, walked an aisle, or prayed a prayer years ago. But do you truly understand the gospel? And can you know for certain that you have eternal life?
If you have doubts about your salvation, don’t ignore them or simply try to convince yourself that everything is OK. God doesn’t want us to leave our eternity to chance. His Word tells us how we can know that we belong to Him.
And if you are confident of your salvation, what do you need to remember when sharing the gospel with friends and family? How much depends on saying just the right words or making a convincing argument?
These are questions with eternal consequences, and today’s reading from 1 Corinthians has something important to say about both.
Imagine waking up tomorrow morning to complete chaos.
Phones ringing unanswered. Cars abandoned. News anchors struggling to explain what has happened. Friends, neighbors, and family members suddenly gone.
Would you know exactly what had happened?
More importantly…
Would you be among those who disappeared—or would you still be here?
Whether you believe Christ’s return is near or many years away, Scripture repeatedly calls us to be ready. Today’s readings remind us that God’s judgment does not come without warning. Just as Judah experienced a season of mercy before judgment finally fell, our world is living under God’s patience today.
But His patience will not last forever.
We’ll look at Josiah’s remarkable response when he rediscovered God’s Word, why God delayed judgment for a time, and what the Bible says about the coming return of Christ. Most importantly, we’ll answer one of life’s greatest questions:
How can you know with certainty that you belong to Christ and are ready whenever He returns?
What if you’ve done everything you knew to do… and your child still isn’t walking with the Lord?
It’s one of the deepest heartaches many Christian parents experience. We faithfully taught God’s Word, prayed, took them to church, and tried to model a Christian life. Yet somewhere along the way, they wandered—or never seemed to embrace the gospel at all.
Did we fail?
Or could it be that we’ve misunderstood an important biblical principle about parenting?
Today’s readings offer hope for discouraged parents while reminding us of another foundational truth of the Christian faith: salvation has never been earned through good works, good parenting, or religious activity. It has always been by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Normally, on Sundays people around the world fill their churches. Most would identify themselves as Christians. Perhaps because they grew up in a Christian home or because they have some general belief in God. But could there be a great danger in that assumption? Could many, even some who attend church every week, be Christians in name only?
When an observer in Jesus’ time asked, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” He warned that the gate is narrow. And when the people of Joshua’s day claimed that they would serve the Lord, he told them not to take that commitment lightly. Are there many today who have failed to heed those warnings? Are there many who base their relationship with God on something besides the true gospel?
That should be a heartbreaking thought for those of us who truly understand the gospel because it is the most incredible GOOD NEWS ever! Today’s post includes a link to a video that could shake your understanding of what the good news of the gospel really is!
Maybe you go to church, or maybe you don’t. Maybe you call yourself a Christian or maybe you’re not even sure you want to. What you do know is that you live with a sense of guilt and confusion. You lack any lasting peace and wonder if it will ever change.
Guilt sometimes leaves us with the vague feeling that we are not good enough and that we deserve whatever happens. But sometimes it leaves us angry and confused about why others seem to have peace and seem so sure of their relationship with God, while we live with constant doubt.
The problem with guilt is that it’s more than an emotion. It is a state of being. We are all guilty before a holy God. And there is only one remedy and one road to real peace.
I talked to a young mom recently about Christian parenting. She is struggling with a strong-willed child and looking for some answers. When I began sharing biblical principles, she told me, it’s a different world today where parenting is concerned. What did she mean? Should parents today ignore parts of the Bible’s instructions on parenting? If not, how can we be obedient to Scripture and, yet, wise in the world in which we live?
Things happen in life. Sometimes we’re sinned against. Someone hurts us. A friend betrays us. Other times, it’s a temptation. Someone or something looks good to us. We think we’re not getting something we need … or want. Like Eve, we see something that’s desirable. We may even believe God is withholding something good from us. How will we respond? We’re at a point of decision.
How will you handle your next point of decision, and what can help you make a better decision?
Today we’ll talk about how many of us are still trying to pay for all the wrongs we have done … kind of like making minimum payments on sin. We’ll also look at the need to be faithful in whatever we do and the importance of being ready for eternity.
It’s so easy to let hypocritical attitudes creep into our hearts and allow ourselves to become religious pretenders. We may look good on the outside, but have hearts full of envy, greed, anger, worry, and self-righteousness. In the process, we lose the joy of our salvation and find ourselves just going through the motions of the Christian life. But there is an even worse danger in being a religious pretender.
It’s something most of us would rather not think about.
We take care of ourselves.
We go to doctors.
We try to eat better.
We exercise.
And we do what we can to postpone the day when physical life ends.
But what if physical death isn’t the death we should fear most?
Scripture speaks of something called “the second death.”
And unlike physical death, it is eternal.
Jesus described a place where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die.
It’s not temporary.
It’s not purgatory.
And it’s not annihilation.
That’s sobering enough.
But Scripture tells us something even more disturbing:
Left to ourselves, every one of us deserves it.
So is there any way to escape it?
There is.
And that brings us back to the reason Christ came into the world in the first place.
Christmas wasn’t merely about a baby in a manger.
It was about a rescue we desperately needed.
And Revelation 12 pulls the curtain back even further, showing us the spiritual battle surrounding the coming of Christ—and an enemy who wanted to destroy God’s plan before the Savior could accomplish it.
