Can You Miss Heaven by 18 Inches?

Let's say you're at the beach with your Golden Retriever, throwing the ball out to him in the waves and suddenly you see him begin to drown. At the same time you look over and see a human being drowning as well. Who do you save?

Tough question I know, one tugs on our emotions and feelings and the other impacts our values. It is possible to miss heaven by 18 inches. That is the approximate distance from your brain to your heart. We have to make sure the decisions we make in life are not based on emotions or feelings but what we know is true. 100% true.

What we do, see, and hear needs to be grounded and based on Biblical doctrine otherwise we begin to make small compromises as believers. Don't believe me look at the state of the America from the foundation of the country to where we are now. I believe quite a bit of the blame is the fault of pastors, church leaders and the church. We began to make small changes and allow compromises so people wouldn't be offended by what they hear as the absolute truth. People need absolute truth, it's a part of who they are on the inside, they just internally argue with their brain, what they will believe in their heart, logic or feelings.

We are not here by accident, or some cosmic speck in the universe.

Psalm 19: 1-3 spells it out quite clearly, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hand. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard."

It surprises me at what people believe anymore. If you ask people where do you think you came from, not Mom or Dad but your origin of creation, you will likely get one of three answers. (1) God, (2) Evolution and (3) Aliens.

It is sad when you consider the believability of the final two. The Bible speaks of this truth in 1 Timothy 4: 1, "The Spirit clearly says that in the later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons."

It's funny when you think about how humans evolved. At what point did we stop? When our eyeballs wound up in just the right place? Evolution is meaningless. Everything that is, wound up as an accident. So why when we want to create a car for example, don't we blow up a junkyard and see what happens? If you want a watch, why not take a stick of dynamite and some metal, stick out your arm and see if a watch appears on it.

Psalm 14:1 "The fool says in his heart, There is no God."

Your heart speaks what you believe, because if you used your brain, you would have to believe in the existence of God. It isn't an intellectual issue, it's a heart issue.

Romans 1: 18-20, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be know about God is plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Gods love, his promises and His Word, The Bible, never changes. It is the world now that is changing God's Word to be relevant and change with the times. Churches are even now beginning to break away from the traditional teachings of the church in an effort to be more acceptable with today's culture and generation.

The church is not to shape itself to a culture and what the culture says, even if they have to stand alone. The church needs to be the ones to stand without apology on the doctrines of God, people need to be convicted by God, and the truth of God's Word.

We certainly don't want people to come to church because they want to feel good about the sinful life their living, being accepted and told it's okay to continue to live that way, that we accept you anyway. While they are being patted on the back by the church, they are being led to hell, just so they can feel better about their lifestyle choices. There are no homosexual Christians, just like there are no pedophile Christians, no Christian murderer, adulterers or liars. If we are true Christians, we repent of those ways and we hold onto to God's truth and we are forever changed. It doesn't mean we won't still be tempted or struggle in those areas, but we no longer have to walk freely in them and do as we please thinking there is no accountability there.

Stability can only come from standing on the truth, that God never changes. Don't follow your heart on spiritual matters, follow God, the absolute truth!

The Moral Dilemma

"What is this?" she said to herself as she looked again at the bank balance. "This can't be right!"

Scrolling down the list of items on her checking account, there is was. A deposit for $4816.20. That seems like way too much money for her husband's company to pay him. It wasn't there standard deposit they were used to seeing and why would it show up a day before he got paid anyway. The column next to the amount still was flagged as "processing," but the available amount in their account was including this weird deposit.

Picking up the house phone that sat on the desk next to her computer, she dialed the number of her husband's cell phone. She knew he was out on a job site meeting with contractors but hoped he just might pick up.

"Hello?"

"Hey babe, I know you're still working, but have you checked our bank balance lately?"

"Why? Is it that bad?" he asked.

"No it is actually pretty good if you ask me. It seems like your getting back $4816.20 this week!"

"What? That can't be right! Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am. Next to the deposit amount is the name of your company but it doesn't say direct deposit. Why is the check amount so high? Is there something you're not telling me? An unexpected bonus? Are they laying you off and this is your final check?"

Laughing he said, "No it's none of those that I can think of. Let me finish up here and make some calls and I'll check on it and call you back.

"Okay! Call me when you're on your way home then. Love you."

"Love you too!"

Now that was odd, she thought as she stared out the window. What reason could there be for a deposit like that showing up? All kinds of thoughts began to run through her head. Perhaps they are paying him out for all his accrued vacation time! No, wait, he doesn't have that many hours. Besides that would really put a damper on the plans they had for the coming days off he had planned to take off.

Perhaps it is a raise. He just finished up a year with the company. Maybe they realized that they were under paying him considerably and raise his salary. Wouldn't that be nice? It would certainly solve quite a few of the bills that were lingering around and perhaps now, they might be able to move out of the questionable area they were living in where crime is constantly on the rise.

All she knew inside her heart, was something was not right. No matter how she tried to justify it the money wasn't theirs to keep.

Then she started thinking.

What would anyone else do in a similar situation?  What if they weren't believers? Would they seriously keep the money or would they come clean and make some calls. What if all of this is a weird ethical test of some kind?

What would you do?