Heaven A Matter Of Faith

This is an excerpt from an article I read this morning in the Editorial section of our local newspaper:

Heaven a matter of faith

Barbara Walters' television program "Heaven" presented a comprehensive view of a subject easy to accept for many but controversial for others.

From my Christian perspective, it is all a matter of faith: the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen; the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot now see it up ahead.

God gave His love letter, the Holy Bible, to mankind so that every person could read it and determine, by our free will, to accept or reject it as the Word of God. I believe God's marvelous plan for mankind included His road map to Heaven, the Bible.

The only way to get there is through His Son, Jesus. He said, I am the (only) way, the (only) truth and the (only) life: no man comes to the Father, but by Me.

Needless to say, I am in complete agreement with what was said above. Below is a copy of a response I wrote to someone who had left a comment. Wish I'd seen the program about Heaven.

I don't know you, but it seems from your posts that you are searching for answers in your life. Like most of us, we question our lives sometimes asking, "Is this all there is?" It's okay to not be sure just what you believe, or to question why things have happened to you. I think that's completely normal. You said in your post "I'm the only person my age that has a reason for not believing in him". I would like to respond to that and say you are NOT ALONE even though you may feel that you are sometimes.There are so many people that have had to grow up in very bad environments. There are people who have lost the people they love through illness and death. I am a Hospice nurse, so I have seen even young people who are terminally ill and know they are going to die. We live in a world that is not perfect, and we know that every one of us will eventually die.

You said you feel like being close to God, yet the whole concept of God is laughable. I guess it's just hard for most of us to believe in something we can't actually see, or hear, or touch. We have probably never seen the Indian Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, but we believe they exist because we have seen a map that shows us they are there. We have FAITH, we believe, even though we have never actually seen, or touched them, or smelled the salty air on the wind. God IS real, I can tell you that with 100 percent certainty, yet I can never prove to you that He exists. He doesn't just live up in the clouds, looking down on us and marking in His little book every time we are bad.

God speaks to us today, not in the literal way that He did to Adam and Eve, and Moses and the Prophets in the Old Testament times. Today He speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. The Bible was being written during the time they were alive, and God spoke directly to them. That's how the Bible came to be, by someone writing down the history of how the world was created, of how God created us with the free will to make our own decisions. He could have made us like zombies, or puppets that would act when He pulled the strings. But God didn't want that. God wanted us to LOVE Him back. God wanted us to WANT to do the right things. He knows what is best for us, because He created us. If you think about it, if everyone followed the Bible, don't you think the world would be so different today? Today people say, well how do you determine what is the right thing? What's right for me may not be right for you. That's why we need a standard, because otherwise everyone would do whatever they wanted because they say that is right for them. The Bible gives us that standard.

You said you feel as though all your mistakes and bad judgments are published for everybody to see. If you read the Bible, you will see MANY people who made some very bad mistakes, yet God loved them and forgave them of those mistakes. Every one of us has done things we aren't proud of. We'd like to somehow go back in time and do things differently with what we know now. But that's not possible, so we learn from our past mistakes and go on. That's what is so wonderful about knowing God is real, and He cares and He hears us when we talk to Him. It breaks His heart to see us sad and just living our lives in a way that He knows will make us unhappy, yet He allows it because we have been given free will to make our own decisions.

I'm glad you haven't given up on God, because He hasn't given up on you. Go to church on Sunday and really listen to what is said. If you really believe that things happen for a reason, then you will find that God loves you so much and if you make a move to get closer to Him, you will see more and more of His plan for YOUR life.