Daycare, Protests, and Who Gets to Heaven

http://www.lifebuzz.com/protest-signs/

I drop my son, Carsen, off at daycare almost every morning.  Most mornings I’m too rushed to watch him in his class, but the other day I had a few extra minutes.

It’s amazing what you can learn from watching a three year old. 

Did you know that you can make a snow angel in mud and snow?  Did you know that it is impossible to have bath time without a boat? 

On this particular morning, I watched as a little boy showed me why Heaven is so important.

Carsen has had three best friends his entire life (literally, they were all in the infant room together).  Every morning, these four boys get together to embark on a new adventure.  Now what they did that morning was not very impressive to me or to them…they built a tower out of Legos.  What caught my attention was the joy they all shared in completing this task together; the importance of community in their shared adventure.

Community is at the heart of who we are.  We all desire to belong; to be a part of something bigger.  Millennials understand this better than any other generation alive today.  There has never been a more worldly cognizant generation than Millennials (thank you Twitter), and there has never been a more socially conscious generation than Millennials.  The reason there are so many more protests today is not because the world is so much worse, it’s because the largest demographic in history is unhappy with what they are apart of.  They want to stand for something.  They want their lives to matter and make an impact.  They want community.

And that’s true for whatever generation you are apart of.

So when it comes to faith, it shouldn’t surprise us that the biggest question involves community.

“How do I know if I’m going to Heaven?”

In other words, “I want to be a part of something bigger and better than my current life when I die.  I want to be a part of a community that matters.  How can I make that happen?”

Whatever you believe; Muslim, Jew, or Christian; there are only three options:

1) You’re born into it.

2)  You earn your way into it.

3)You’re given access to it.

Every faith system, every religion, boils down to one of those three options.  The downside is that every religion also claims that their option is the only right option.

So who’s right?

Around 1876 BC, a man named Abraham is introduced to the world’s stage.  Abraham is where all three major faith traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) come together.  One of his sons, Isaac, becomes the ancestral father of Judaism, and his other son, Ishmael, becomes the ancestral father of Islam.  Christianity comes in about 2,000 years later with a man named Jesus claiming a Jewish lineage.  But Abraham is the starting point for all three major faith traditions.  He is also where they all begin to separate, and it happened through a single prayer.

One night, Abraham was praying after God had told him that He would make a great nation through Abraham’s descendants.  Problem was, Abraham had no children.  Kinda hard to make a nation with no people, so Abraham was questioning God on this little detail.  And God tells him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can.  That's how many descendants you will have!” (Genesis 15:4-5)

And then, one of the most important statements in the entire Bible comes out of nowhere.  And it was so powerful and so revolutionary that it would eventually be the statement that divided Christians from Jews, from Muslims, and even Catholics from Protestants.  And if you are ever wondering if you are going to Heaven or not, or if you can ever belong in that eternal community, then you have to understand this statement:

“Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.” (Genesis 15:6)

Abraham was stamped as righteous, granted access to God, to heaven, to that exclusive community because of his faith in the promise of God.  It had nothing to do with what Abraham had accomplished, who Abraham’s ancestors were, or how good of a person Abraham was (in fact, he was kind of a jerk if I’m being honest.  Told some city leaders on two different occasions that his wife was his sister...because she was hot...because he wanted preferential treatment.  Seriously, no lie.  Read it here and here).

Before there were the Ten Commandments or any other divine law, Abraham was granted access to God’s community and granted a relationship because he believed. 

Trusting in God resulted in right standing with God.

The problem is everything in you and me says that a right standing with God is earned by doing right things.  Everything we learn from religion, school, athletics or work proves our thesis.

The Jews would eventually embrace a posture that says by being in Abraham’s lineage, you were guaranteed a relationship with God.  Muslims would later create a system where you could earn your way into heaven through belief, God’s messengers, and good deeds.  Christians would be divided over this from the first century through the Reformation in the 1500's.

But what if religion, the Church, your parents, has made all of this more complicated than it was supposed to be?

Be honest, would that really shock you?  The Church made things confusing!? Whaaaaaaaat!?

But really, what if the starting point for a relationship with God, and thus access to the community of heaven, is as simple as trust?

What if a single expression of trust was enough?

What if taking Him at His Word was all He wanted the whole time?  What if it was our job not to figure out how to get access to Him, but rather to learn as much as possible about the access He’s already given us?

So, until we meet again, wrestle with this question:

“On what grounds, if any, will God find me acceptable?”

1) Are you born with it?

2) Do you have to earn it?

3) You’re already given access to it?

Be honest.  Be open.  This is the Christian Safe Zone.