Everybody’s going somewhere. I am fascinated when I am in a busy city sitting at an intersection waiting for the light to change. With the change of the light, there’s three lanes going this way and three lanes going that way and there are six lanes on my left and six lanes on my right waiting to make their move. Everybody wants to get there quickly, so everybody’s in a hurry. The cars are lined up in all lanes, and this is just one intersection of one city; there’s a million more just like it. Everybody’s going somewhere. Except for the occasional aimless wanderer, every person has a destiny in mind and every person has the way to get there in mind, and every person is committed to reaching their destination. That is what makes up the hustle and bustle of life in the city.
Whether it is real to us or not, the fact is there is eternal destiny for every living soul. The other day I asked a 17 year old young man in a store if he knew he was going to heaven when he died. He hesitated a moment with thought and said yes, that he thought he was. I asked him another question, “What qualifies you to go to heaven?” Again, after a moment of thought he replied, “Well, I’m a good person, I’ve not done anything real bad…” I then shared with him the good news that the Word says we have all sinned, and the wages of sin is death, or separation from God, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. He is totally righteous for us, he paid the penalty of death for us, so we can now be one with God through his goodness and his work on our behalf. As we call upon him and receive what he did for us by faith, then we can depend on him for assurance of going to heaven. It does not depend on us being good. We cannot be good enough. Jesus is good enough before God. As we hold to him, then we are depending on what he did for us, and that is the sure way to heaven. “Will you call on him and trust him to take you to heaven?” He said, “Yes sir”. We were traveling through and I left him in the store with those words.
Most people think being good qualifies for entry into heaven. Jesus said we must be born again. That occurs when we embrace the work of the crucified, resurrected Lord Jesus Christ as our forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God, and we turn from our sin and from trusting in our own goodness and righteousness. When we are trusting in him in this way, we have assurance of an eternal home in heaven and we commit ourselves to follow him with water baptism and our whole life. Apart from God, hell is the destiny. With God, through Jesus, heaven is our home.