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Standby Passengers

by Skip Heitzig |
I think it's possible to be on the way to heaven, but just not enjoying the ride. I'm talking about people who wake up every day wondering, "Am I really saved? I don't feel as saved as I felt yesterday." That's nonsense! People who think that way are like standby passengers at the airport. They're thinking, "I hope I am going to get on this plane, but there is no guarantee that I will."

Once, a seminary professor was witnessing to a man and asked him if he had received Jesus Christ. The man said, "I don't know if I am among the elect." The professor asked him when he would find out, and he said, "I won't know until I die." When the professor suggested that might be a little too late, the man said, "If I die and find out that I am not among the elect, I'll do my best to glorify God in hell." Talk about being a standby passenger!

But God wants us to know that we don't have to live that way. We can know that we are on the way to heaven, and that our salvation is secure. We are promised that in 1 John 5:13: "These things I write unto you that you may know that you have eternal life."

John 1:13 tells us that we were born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It is the will of God that you be saved (see 2 Peter 3:9), and it is the will of God that you live with a sense of security in your salvation.

In 1 Peter 1:2, Peter calls believers "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." The word "elect" means selected or chosen ones. You have been called and chosen by God, and Paul said, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Ephesians 1:4).

Peter calls it a "living hope" (1 Peter 1:3), "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time" (vv. 4-5). We are born of God, begotten of God, and kept by God.

Peter goes on: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (vv. 6-7).

God wants believers to know that we were chosen by Him, foreordained by Him, and secure in our faith.

You are not a standby passenger for heaven. Your seat is reserved, and it has been paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ. And for that, you should "greatly rejoice"!

In His strong love,

Skip Heitzig

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