ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY - PART 49

   ONE                              HEARTBEAT                AWAY

   PART 49


(Mark Cahill's Book)

CHAPTER 5

It's the Law!

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I know the hard 
way that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories 
don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. 
Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking
the moment, and making the best of it, without knowing
what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
GILDA RADNER

Gilda Radner, the famous comedienne, 
didn't know what was going to happen next -but you do. You know that there are only two destinations when you leave this world, and you head for the one or the other, just after your last heartbeat.

That leave us with another question - one that most people are keenly aware of.

On a flight to Cincinnati one day, I was sitting next to a man who worked for Proctor and Gamble. I asked him what he thought was out there after he died.

He said, "I believe there is a heaven or hell after we die. What I can't figure out is, what is the criterion for who gets to which place?" 
And, of course, that is the question: what is the separating factor that will put us in one or the other place for all of eternity?

For by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
(Ephesians  2:8-9)

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5)

The first point that
amazed me is that
we can't take credit      
for enough good            
works, hoping to
gain entrance into
heaven.  This totally
goes against almost
all of our thinking. 
Bosses, coaches, teachers and others, 
judge us on the work that we do or don't do.  Won't God do the same?

I remember sitting in church one time
as a teenager, and a major moment of my life happened to me: I began to think about how God would judge me. I pictured that God had a very big score card in heaven and that I got a check mark everytime that I was nice to my brothers and sister, a check mark for everytime I threw a quarter into the collection plate, a check mark each time I turned in my homework, a check mark for going to church, etc.,

But I was left with one very big question:
How many check marks did I need to get into heaven ?  Was it 500 or 501?  What was the answer?  What gets us into heaven?

And what gets us into hell?  People get
very upset even thinking about that!

next post  tomorrow 31st October