A touchy truth …

Every now and then you’ll see posted on some social media site a photo of a loved one with a note that today would be their birthday and the person who has passed from this life is celebrating in heaven.

We certainly hope so!

BUT …

Yes, on this most sensitive of topics, we have to come to grips with the fact there are many, many people who will never see family members in heaven because they won’t be there.

Once we “lose” a loved one to death, it becomes very easy to rationalize that they were a “good” person, a “kind” person, a moral person, or that they had any number of admirable qualities about them. But there remains a truth that every human being has to face:

Unless we enter into a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, we are not saved and our eternal destiny will not be to spend forever with God.

That’s a tough fact to deal with, but better we deal with it now, while there is opportunity, than to come to the end of this life without being reconciled to God.

The Washington Post reported in September, 2014 on a study of how flippantly people regard the terms and conditions of even the most basic of contracts:

“In an experiment sponsored by security firm F-Secure, an open Wi-Fi network was set up in a busy public area. When people connected, they were presented with lengthy terms and conditions. But to see just how little attention we pay when checking that agreement box, F-Secure included a ‘Herod clause’ — one that offered up free Wi-Fi in exchange for the company’s permanent ownership of the user’s firstborn child.

“A company would probably have trouble getting you to hand over your pride and joy (even if you were technically contractually obligated), so don’t panic. But this hapless agreement to terms is pretty common: A 2011 survey found that 58 percent of adults would rather read an instruction manual … than go through online terms and conditions. Even the phone book was a more palatable read for 12 percent of those surveyed … This new study isn’t the first of its kind: On April Fool’s Day in 2010, a host of U.K. shoppers were tricked into signing away their immortal souls.”

Did you know the term “the New Testament” actually means “new covenant”? A covenant is similar to (but different than) a contract. How much attention have you given to the terms of God’s covenant with you? One writer noted:

When it comes to a relationship with God, far too many of us would rather read the phone book than read the Bible, wherein we’d discover that no amount of religiosity, morality, or good deeds are sufficient to gain an eternal relationship with God.

We must come to God on His terms.

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it,” Ephesians 2:8-9.

“But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises,” Hebrews 8:6.

Ignore these terms and you actually could end up signing away your immortal soul!

Scotty