Inheriting Heaven or Hell (from the book "Drawing Near")

"[God] caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3).

We have seen several aspects of the believer's inheritance, and will see more in future days. But realize that unbelievers also will receive an inheritance, for Jesus will say to them, "Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt. 25:41, 46).

Only Christians have eternal life and a royal inheritance. When you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you became a new creation in Christ and your life began to center on Him rather than yourself. The Holy Spirit indwelt you and began to transform your attitudes and actions. That's the new birth! It's like starting all over again, only this time you're pursuing God's glory rather than worldly pleasures or goals.

Also, when you were saved you became an heir of God and a fellow heir with Christ (Rom. 8:17). So the new birth was the means of your salvation and your eternal inheritance.

Having said that, I must admonish you, just as Paul admonished the Corinthians, to "test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?" (2 Cor. 13:5). You never want to be deluded about your relationship with Christ. When you trust in the living Lord, you have a living hope and a glorious eternal inheritance. Anything less results in an inheritance of eternal damnation.

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies" (John 11:25). Be sure your faith is firmly fixed on Him.

Pray for family and friends who don't know Christ. Ask the Lord to redeem them so He will be glorified, and they will become joint heirs with Christ.

What do these verses teach about the new birth: John 1:12-13, John 3:3, and 1 Peter 1:23?

Put another way, the soul and spirit are oriented to time differently than the body is oriented to time. When the Rapture happens, the bodies we shall be made into will be oriented to time on a higher dimensional level of time orientation, so we are fit to live in eternity.

The analogy is to a flatland of two dimensional space. To see a three dimensional ball as it truly is, the flatlander would have to be made three spatial dimensions instead of two spatial dimensions.

In 1 John 3:2 we read that when He appears we shall see Him as He truly is, much greater dimensionally than 4D, and we will see Him as He really is because He will have transformed us in a moment int he twinkling of an eye to be like Him, greater than 4D ... and in that instant we will not longer be confined to 4D spacetime and we shall disappear!

Interesting about being born again in John’s gospel. The discussion of being born again or from above.

The conversation with Nicodemus came after the wedding in Cana and after He cleanses the temple of moneychangers..all early in the gospel.

That middle event of those three (1.wedding turning water into wine,2.cleansing temple, 3.talk of being born again/from above)- the cleansing the temple of moneychangers in John, is in a different place in the other gospels.

Maybe it is not another event and not chronological but a deliberate discrepancy that holds a mystery to what being born from above and taking on immortality must deal with- the issue of money and things and possessions and the way all that gets in the way in our own temples..

That order is interesting prophetically if people see the wedding in Cana as the picture of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Would people be willing to sell all they have, give to the poor and follow Him?

Heck, would they be willing to sell their possessions like the first believers and as any that had need, could use the money?
Not sure most would get rid of their possessions like the first believers did and commune together.
People today would call them cult.

Those first believers were ‘cleansing their temples’.
Just like Sapphira and Ananias did not..

And we can say it was a time the Kingdom grew and miracles were common.

Just an interesting place for John to place the talk of being born again/from above in the gospel..

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