{"id":10186,"date":"2018-04-16T15:30:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=10186"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:30:51","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:30:51","slug":"making-it-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/10186\/making-it-in\/","title":{"rendered":"“Making It In”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beth and I were able to spend a few hours with Jimmy and Debbie today after our\u00a0Sunday\u00a0meeting. Jimmy spoke some about what a new and wonderful thought it was to think that Jesus never spent his time on earth striving to make it in to heaven. As we had lunch, Jimmy asked, “Has anyone here at the table ever had that thought?”\u00a0 None of us had ever considered it.\u00a0\u00a0It blessed us all to chew on it some more because it reveals more about God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus never spent a moment of his life worrying\u00a0about\u00a0“if I can only make it in.”\u00a0\u00a0That wasn’t even an issue.\u00a0 He possessed his salvation in doing the will of God.\u00a0\u00a0Salvation\u00a0was built into it. Everything that he ever needed was contained in\u00a0doing the will of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

While you were preaching about that today, about Jesus not spending his time on earth hoping that somehow, he could just make it in,\u00a0I felt the Spirit of the Lord ask me a question.\u00a0 And the question amounted to this,\u00a0 “….and then what?”<\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0In other words, if a person is striving, hoping that they can just make it in to heaven, then what?\u00a0 Are they hoping to get there and then be free to live different from the way they had been living up to that point?\u00a0 Are they hoping to get there and then be free to sin, after living a life clean enough to just make it in the door?<\/span><\/p>\n

I felt like the Lord was asking, Who are you?\u00a0 Are you someone different from you seem – someone who will be free to finally live after you \u201cmake it in\u201d, once \u201cthe deal is sealed\u201d, so-to-speak?\u00a0\u00a0It was really a sobering thought, but also one that made it seem absurd to ever try to just “make it in” at all.\u00a0\u00a0Our salvation is contained in our doing the will of God, also.\u00a0 And it will remain there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus spent a great deal of time trying to persuade his disciples that it was only lack of faith in their father’s love for them that prevented them from moving mountains!\u00a0 How much less should they have been concerned with just “making it in\u201d!\u00a0 Surely, Jesus didn’t die for that.<\/span><\/p>\n

I love it when God reveals a piece of Himself; it always replaces something that I had been imagining about Him (and didn’t realize it) up to that point.<\/span><\/p>\n

This weekend was wonderful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,\u00a0 Beth and I were able to spend a few hours with Jimmy and Debbie today after our\u00a0Sunday\u00a0meeting. Jimmy spoke some about what a new and wonderful thought it was to think that Jesus never spent his time on earth striving to make it in to heaven. As we had lunch, Jimmy asked, “Has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}