"If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" That's an important question. But I believe the second question is even more important: "In the more likely scenario that you do not die tonight, what will you do tomorrow?" The way that we answer the second question will also serve to answer the first question. For we are already being judged and the life we are currently living displays that judgment in many ways. A Lawyer questioned Jesus saying, "Teacher, what should I do to inherit the life of the coming age?" (Luke 10:25) Jesus asked the Lawyer for his own answer to that standard rabbinic question. The Lawyer answered: "You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, and all your understanding; and your neighbor as yourself." Jesus responded with a thumbs up. "That is the view I take as well." He says, in effect. But the lawyer wanted to "win the point" because this wasn't an innocent question. The lawyer was upset with Jesus because all the wrong people appeared to be finding their way into His movement. Jesus had included a Jewish traitor, who previously had collected taxes from fellow Jews to give to the Romans, in His inner circle. Jesus had received the ministry of
finances from former female prostitutes. Jesus had healed the slave of a Roman Centurion and even declared that the Centurion had more faith than anyone in Israel! In other words, as far as the Lawyer was concerned, Jesus' orthodoxy was in question. I don't know if first century Jews would have put it like that but the Lawyer clearly wanted to smoke Jesus out as someone being disloyal to Torah. Jesus responded to this challenge by offering the parable of the prodigal son. By the end of the parable, it is the Lawyer who admits that the person who is "keeping the Torah" in the story is the one person, a Samaritan, who possessed the wrong holy book, and worshiped at the wrong temple, but who understood what the One true God wanted out of him as a human being. The thoughts of the intellect are important but the deeds of the body reflect what is truly in the heart. That is what I get out of this story. So if you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell? I think you can answer that question by asking another question: Is the way you are living your life today reflecting a heart that is pursuing the will of God or are you simply going with self-serving purposes of Hell? If you don't die tonight, what will you do with tomorrow? When you finally do die, you will obtain what you pursued..
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