Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  1 Peter 3-5  NASB

I once spoke with a loved one about their salvation and about the choice we have of going to heaven or going to hell. This person’s response was that they didn’t believe all that because they felt as though hell was here on earth. They felt as though they were already in hell and felt that they would pay for their sins here on earth. They told me that they thought that everyone went to heaven when they died. Now this is nowhere in the bible, my friend. There is nothing that says if we suffer here on earth, we can live any old way we choose and get to heaven.

I recently spoke about the separation anxiety that we feel when we separate ourselves from God. It’s a lot like being a tiny child lost in a huge shopping center.  When we experience this, we are experiencing what the eternal fires of hell will be like, but trust me hell is real and it’s not our life here on earth. There may be times when our lives feel that way, but there is a difference.

I look at it as taking a trip. In a few days, God willing, I will embark on a trip that has been planned for over a year now. We did not use a travel agent, instead we did everything on our own. This included booking the flights, airport transfers, hotel rooms, sight seeing excursions, and tickets to shows. It required a great deal of planning. Now due to the expense of these things, we paid as we went along. We didn’t buy everything at once. We bought the plane tickets first and reserved the rooms. We then bought the other stuff every other month or so. We had to purposefully plan and budget for this trip.

Our life as Christians is much the same way. We have to first be born again into the life that God promises and then we spend the rest of our journey working on getting to our final destination. Now we can plainly see that there are some that are working very hard to get to heaven and we can plainly see others working hard to get to hell. But those working hard to get to hell can change their destination by being born again.

Now when I began booking my trip, it didn’t mean that I was at my destination. It meant that I was making plans to get there. When we accept Christ as our Savior, we are beginning the first stages of our journey. We must then continue to carefully plan by obeying God’s commands and living in a way that sets us apart and hopefully will draw others to Christ. This begins our heavenly journey while we are stilling living here on earth. We are given a peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). We are given unending joy (Isaiah 35:10). So you could say that we begin to experience a tiny taste of heaven here on earth.

You may have heard it said that life is what you make of it. Well I ask you today, are you living your heaven here on earth or do you feel as though you are in the pits of hell? Have you been born again? You see life here on earth may seem like a living hell. But, our scripture passage tells us that we can be born again to a living hope. Jesus Christ has provided this for us. Have you taken advantage of this wonderful opportunity? You see the hell in which you may feel that you are living here on earth has an escape route. Once we sit before the Great White Throne of Judgment and are tossed into the lake of fire there is no escape. That hell is not only filled with torment aggravated by our separation from God, but it is hot, very, very hot. Now if you have ever spent any time with no air conditioning in a Louisiana summer, you know you don’t want that. And remember, it’s forever.

While you are here on earth, you are free to choose your forever. Know that it can start today. You can choose today whether you want your forever to be hell here on earth and for eternity or whether you want to reside in the shelter of the Almighty God (Psalm 91:1). You can start your trip to heaven today. You can live under His protection. You can live with a peace that confounds others. You can live with a joy that can start right now and never, ever end. The choice is yours.

Have a great day!