What a joy to know Jesus! To know Jesus is to know the Father and to know the Father is Salvation! Going to heaven when we die is not salvation, but as Jesus Himself told us
….this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent Jn 17:3
Knowing the Father is not something reserved for when we die and go to a heaven….No…Knowing the Father begins the moment you wake up inside of Jesus’ own faith and relationship with Father.
Making salvation something that happens after you die is not what the Lord wants for you and me. Religious spirits want you to think that, but not the Spirit sent from Jesus. If you make salvation an experience or event that happens after you die, then you will live this side of death in fear striving to be good enough for heaven. In fact that is generally how Christianity has been presented for about 1900 years.
Jesus IS The Salvation of God!! Jesus Himself. There is no other Salvation I know not one. To have Jesus is to be SAVED. Jesus come to live inside your very fleshy heart–that is Salvation. You are saved if you have Jesus.
There exists confusion in the body of believers regarding the goal of the Gospel. Dying as a believer in Jesus assures us of heaven–agreed. But the Apostles did not strive for the goal of “going to heaven”…no…What they strove for was to be part of the First resurrection out from the dead.
Php 3:10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
Php 3:11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
There is no question about a believer going to heaven when they die. If you believe in the Lord Jesus your spirit is saved. When you depart the body you now live in, your spirit, which is already inside of Jesus remains inside of Him. Thus you(your spirit)is ALREADY IN HEAVEN now as you walk this earthly realm.
Joh 3:13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
Jesus said He was in in heaven, even as He stood there on the earth. This is what has happened to your spirit when you first believed into Jesus. You were conveyed out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Your spirit was brought into Jesus heart, into Heaven itself, inside of Father God who fills all things.
So it is not a question at all ‘whether a believer in Christ Jesus is going to heaven or not’. It is a guarantee, a promise of God to you if you have Jesus Christ you have Life…and that Life is inside His Son-Jesus.
1Jn 5:11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
1Jn 5:12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
1Jn 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
So please be at rest if you have been doubting whether you are heaven bound–You are already there inside of your Saviour Jesus!! Perhaps you say,
“But it doesn’t feel like I am there!?”
True, very true….No it does not feel that way for sure. We are buffeted daily by the pressures of this world and the accusations of the Evil one, it does not seem like we are saved or in heaven…BUT!!
This is the reality presented by Jesus and Paul.
Eph 2:1,5 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, ……made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Eph 2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Again we see from Paul, that just as Jesus said he was heaven even as He stood on the earth…so Paul continues Jesus’ revelation. We were dead, tied to this world….but now are alive inside Jesus, seated together and raised up together with Jesus…..that means in union with, as one with Jesus…where are we seated and raised? HEAVENLY PLACES!!! We are in the heavenly realm now even as we still inhabit these earthy bodies of dust.
Paul was not striving for the goal of going to heaven when he died. He was pressing on for the high calling of the resurrection out from the dead. To do that he made it is his goal, by the SPirit to be FOUND ONLY INSIDE OF JESUS.
Php 3:8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Php 3:9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ(or.. the faith of Christ), the righteousness which is from God by faith;
The striving to be attain the resurrection from the dead is a striving against UNBELIEF. It is a purposeful belief in the truth of the revelation revealed to Paul for the church. Striving to be found only inside of Jesus Christ…is not a matter of not sinning,,,but of believing what He says He has done in and for us in Christ Jesus.
When we come to that place of RESTING IN THE FINISHED WORK of Jesus…then we have come to that day which Jesus spoke of…..
Joh 14:19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
Joh 14:20 At that day you will know that I am inside My Father, and you inside Me, and I inside you.
This is that which the Apostle Paul spoke of!! This is the attaining of the reason for which Christ has apprehended us. This is the coming to the full measure of the stature of Christ. A perfect man. Found ONLY inside of Jesus having no righteousness of our own.
Such a thing is not even possible anyway….having our own righteousness???!!! Ha!! We died on the cross inside Jesus’ own death….the one death of all mankind. We died to any pretence of being righteous in ourselves. We died to any old nature. We died to any trying to measure up by our own efforts. We died and have agreed with God that the Old man is done away with–rendered inoperable. Now we affirm, and heartily agree with God that in Jesus Christ alone have I righteousness and strength!!
Isa 45:23 I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath.
Isa 45:24 He shall say, ‘Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him.
Thus Jesus is God’s Salvation to all who believe…..to those who refuse to believe He continues to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. Those who are busy imagining that they must try to keep God’s laws and to be kind and loving —to be like Jesus the best that they can…are in UNBELIEF AND REBELLION. These ones shall be ashamed and angry at Jesus because all their righteousness will be shown to be but filthy rags which they have sewn together like fig leaves to cover their nakedness.
Believe on the Lord Jesus and continue to believe into Him until you can say like Jesus did…If you have seen me you have seen the Father…I and Jesus are One.
