Consider this: 130 years from now, none of us will be here; 130 years ago, none of us were here, but from everlasting to everlasting, he is God. He was there then; he is here now, and he will be in the end.
In every generation, he will have a remnant, a small group of people who will be his own. These people get to inherit eternal life by his will that came into effect when he died on the cross. All one must do to be part of this is believe him, and they will be born into his family, born of his spirit.
You do not need to join a church, go to a church, or give money to some good cause all you need to do is believe him. It is impossible to relate to someone that you do not believe or that is lying to you. This is God, he cannot lie, we must believe him if we are to have any hope at all beyond the grave.
What exactly must you believe? You are a sinner in need of his mercy as the only hope of salvation; we all are. Rom 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The payment for sin is death Rom 6:23. This is the bad news; the good news is that that God came to live as a man, Jesus, and die to as payment for our sins. He resurrected himself from the dead and now lives to give life to all that will receive this life. To receive this life is salvation, we must believe him.
We do not hope in anything else, for example, going to church, giving money, quitting alcohol, not sinning as much. These are popular teachings. Before I knew the truth, I was led to believe that I must clean up to be acceptable to God. Now I know that this is not the truth. If we hope to be accepted based on our own effort, this will blind us from seeing what God is offering, which is the gift of eternal life through the forgiveness of sins accomplished by Jesus. In the end, Jesus will turn away those who trusted their own works. We are told this in Matthew 7:21-22 – Many will say to him, “Lord Lord, did we not prophecy in Your name”. These people will protest, pointing God to what they did while all their lives he pointed them to what he has done! They did not believe in what God accomplished for us.
Isaiah 64:5 tells us that all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment before God. By this, we understand that nobody will be accepted by him based on their righteous deeds. It is important to recognize that we are all different and that trusting in one’s works may look different from person to person. The result is the same: a rejection of God and what he has accomplished for us in favor of one’s righteousness. All who live like this will be judged by their deeds, found to be lawbreakers and thrown in the lake of fire, they did not receive life and have no place in the kingdom of God Revelation 20:12. God gets to evaluate the state of one’s heart on whether one believes in what he has accomplished or not. He alone decides when and if to resurrect someone.
The entire Bible is written to reveal this God, an actual person, the one who created all things and the only one who can create life. He has called all to repent, change your mind, and believe the good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus has a made a way for all to receive the life that was lost when Adam and Eve sinned so that we can be made alive by receiving the gift of the holy spirit based on what Jesus has accomplished – paying for our sins on the cross, resurrecting from the dead and ascending to heaven where he now lives to raise many others by giving them his holy spirit.