Are you at the point in your spiritual life where you can say, "When I die, I know I'll be going to a good place?" If you're not, hope is right in front of you. Please take the time to read the following; it's not just encouragement; it's an invitation to hope and life.But maybe you don't believe in God, and this whole idea of heaven and hell sounds more like the musings of a wishful thinker, a simple person trying to make peace with their insignificance.

Maybe you haven't thought about it because of everything thrown at you. You may have more bad examples of Christians than good ones, so you've written off the subject now. Or you've concluded already because of other experiences, your education, influences in your life, and reasonings.

The most significant barrier to truth can be assuming you have it. Can I ask you to suspend your assumptions in this area, look around you, and look inside?Look at a flower. Study DNA for a couple of minutes. How can time and chance account for information so beautifully arrayed and dependent on many other systems? Think about life's beginnings - where did the matter and energy originate? What do you know in life that materializes out of nothing?

I don't know of any nothings that lead to somethings. Have you thought about the exact values and constants needed for natural laws to unfold so you could even see that flower? What about your eyes?

A series of mutations could not best explain their existence; they have no use without existing wonderfully as they do. Yes, you can look outside yourself and see God drawing you to himself. Let's look inside.A spiritual x-ray would reveal shocking, unsettling things you may not have seen. God gave us laws and wrote them on our hearts; he gave us 10. When you feel guilty about lying, this alarm system in your heart gets tripped up.

We may call this our conscience or intuition. We are often aware of these violations when we do something wrong. God gave us these ten commandments as a way for us to see how good we are.

If you are a good enough person, let's take the test and see if you pass.Have you lied before? A little white lie is still a lie after all. Have you stolen? Even if you forgot to give that “borrowed” item back when you meant to, you have stolen it, and if you said you'd give it back, that means you have broken two laws now. Have you committed adultery? You may feel good about this one, but adultery starts in the heart. Have you lusted after another person who wasn’t your spouse?

You have broken this law, too, then. God has a continuum of sin starting in our thoughts, emotions, and desires; he looks at the whole person, the inner person, so even if part of you lusted, that part of you God sees and holds accountable. The creator has rights over what he has created.

Have you made another God and devoted yourself to this God? This is spiritual adultery, and it is a grave law to break. God has allowed other spirits and the enemy to make you think there are many paths to Him, but tell me, if one person turns left and another turns right, what makes you think they will end up in the same place? All other religious systems have different coordinates that lead you away from the God who alone can give you hope.

God says that behind idols are spirits - so if you are devoting yourself to work, ambition, things, your family, etc., you have broken this law. If you are not religious, you are still guilty because you are worshipping yourself by deciding what is wrong and right. Are you sure you can trust your perceptions and feelings when they have led you astray in other areas?I have broken all these laws and am certainly not your judge.

God is your judge. God made these laws, they reflect Him, who He is. And there's a big problem because I know you may want to compare yourself to worse people. But God is who you must compare yourself to. And God is perfect. He is holy, so there is no flaw in Him; he knows how your soul must function because he gave it to you. He designed it. Since he is loving, he will forgive you, right?

If forgiveness means feeling bad and saying sorry after you die, then no, because no evil cannot be in his presence. “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; no evil can dwell with you” (Psalm 5:4, ESV). The book of Hebrews tells us there are no second chances after death, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement” (9:27).

Evil and good are as compatible as oil and water with the effects of fire and gasoline. His goodness would consume you as fire, and you would be dead. You hate evil, too. If you were to see a judge release a known child abuser, you would be angry, and you would want justice for this child for the child's sake and the sake of your community.

God's anger is a consuming fire that is ignited by sin. “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18).One little sin is not so little, but why? Because you have sinned against a perfect, holy, righteous judge.

This point is worth repeating because our instincts are to compare ourselves to a worse version of ourselves or other people. God authored life so He is the person we have offended. God says this about people who presume that their good works overshadow the bad works, “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6).

So, that means even what you consider is good is really soiled, spoiled, sickening, useless. And without a new heart or a new nature with a different set of desires, you would consistently desire to defy him. This is an inherited problem we all share because of the sin Adam and Eve committed in the garden; this sin nature gets passed on. God wants to be with people who trust Him from a pure heart. He doesn’t want to spend eternity with people who hate him at every turn, or every other turn. Isn’t it so painful to give your heart to someone who only wants to use you? Hurt you? Betray you? With no hope of changing?

Sin means death earned and hope abandoned. It is a lifetime sentence of hopelessness; it's beyond a capital offense in God's eyes. God made us as souls that will live forever, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). Jesus talks a lot about hell; the whole Bible does. It's dreadful. It's a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth where the worm does not die. It’s so bad that Jesus said it would be better for you to cut off your hand and foot if it meant you going to heaven. There's nothing that can satisfy in hell.

The opposite of good - dread, despair, regret. Lived hopelessness is another way of describing hell. Your life here without Christ is the closest you will get to experiencing heaven. Without a change of course, never ending condemnation, punishment, judgement, destruction, fire, darkness, torment, and separation from God await you.Enter Hope, “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4-6). God knew man would choose not to trust him; he knows everything after all. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:3-4).

God created a new path for you to have life and hope that preceded your life, all of life. The solution was Himself. God sent his only Son, fully God, fully man, to live a sinless life. With his deity, he took on flesh being born through the work of the Holy Spirit to a virgin, Mary. Jesus did not have a sin nature and lived the perfect life depending on the Holy Spirit, who guided him into all truth and righteousness. He joyfully completed his mission to reconcile the world to the Father. He died taking on the penalty you and I deserve. He received the full measure of God’s wrath in our place.

As God's word says, "Life is in the blood." Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. His life for your life. He did what none of us could do. He died bearing the weight of your sins as he hung crucified on a cross. This God exists as one being in three persons - The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

One God, three persons equal in their Godly attributes and nature. The best Christian thinkers cannot explain this concept too deeply by the way. Some mysteries will only be understood more intently when we see Christ face to face.While you were his enemy, he died for you in the most gruesome, painful, and humiliating way. Barely naked on a cross with a torn up back, suffocating in his own blood, abandoned by his best friends, the recipient of scorn and mocking in front of his weeping mother.

And do you what he did on this cross other than endure your wrath and punishment?

That alone would be enough in and of itself, but He also prayed for his tormenters, he stood firm on God’s word trustingly, he offered life to another man that hung guilty beside him, he comforted his mother. He is Worth your devotion. This is the God who wants to spend an eternity with you. Christ was buried in a tomb.

On the third day, he rose again in a new glorified body. God the Father showed his approval for Christ’s sacrifice by raising Him up. Every page of scripture points to Christ. The Bible contains promises of Jesus' coming life, death, resurrection, and ascension. He conquered death and will come again to judge the world and to make everything right.

A new earth with no sin, no suffering, with glorified bodies, is promised for those who turn away from themselves and the false gods they may be knowingly or unknowingly following.Hope comes with belief and trust in Christ. We don't know when we will die, or at what moment God will stop striving with you. There comes a time when God will give you over to your desires. The Holy Spirit has been tapping at your heart.

The enemy wants to place fear in your heart and make you think you will live without consequence, that God is not to be trusted, or these words you have been reading are not to be trusted. Do not listen to the flurry of doubts, the apathy, the lies. Don't delay life when it is so close to you; it’s within your reach. God's word says satan is the Father of Lies, a Murderer, a Thief. Satan was a beautiful high ranking angel, who thought he could be God. Now He is a fallen angel with a sealed fate that wants to grieve God by drawing lost souls into hell.

But remember, there is only 1 creator and he has creative rights over his creation, including Satan. And Satan will be overthrown and cast into the lake of fire and sulfur. You can repent or turn right, right now; you can decide if you will choose life or follow your impressions, your education, your pleasures and your hurts, which lead to eternal hopelessness.

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).To get hope, you can do what scripture says to do, "if you declare with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9, NIV).

You will never regret making this decision. I certainly haven't, and the many believers I have come across have never regretted it. Pray the following, quietly within yourself or out loud…"God, I recognize that I am a sinner. I am sorry and know now that I cannot save myself. I believe that you sent Jesus, your son, to die for my sins and to pay the penalty I deserve.

I accept this free gift. I believe Jesus died, was buried and rose again on the third day, just like you said. Help me to know you better, walk with you, talk with you, and love you back. Thank you for loving me first."After you receive his forgiveness, I would encourage you to prayerfully seek a Bible-believing, Bible-loving church and start going; spend time with God, talking with him in prayer and listening to him by reading the word and applying it to your life. Seek counsel from other Christians who have traveled the well-worn path with Christ. God's word can be challenging to understand and difficult to carry out.

Still, God is with you and for you and your newly found hope will come with fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control throughout your life. He is faithful when we are not faithful, and His children will not be comfortable in their sins for too long.

That's why listening to him in His word is so important because you will know how to avoid the pain that comes from sin! Perfection awaits us after this life time. Trust His goodness and humble yourself as you approach his word. His love is everlasting and your hope and eternal life are secure.

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).And for those who persist in disbelief, can I lovingly challenge you to read the bible? Start with the book of John and then read from start to finish.

Why risk eternity without knowing who you are choosing to give up? You may find that this book is not like any book you’ve ever read.