A Piano has Dropped on Your Head!

A piano has dropped on your head! You have just died and are now facing the door of eternity into heaven. You consider yourself a Christian who loved Jesus but never confronted your secret sinful habits (e.g. porn, drugs) or maybe your life is really clean but you've held jealousy, hatred or envy against someone that you haven't let go (see Galatians 5:19-21).

Expecting to get in to the door through the kingdom of heaven, Jesus approaches you and declares "I never knew you, depart from me you worker of lawlessness".

You stand speechless and try to confront him how you have lived your faith. You try to reason with him about the saints that you took care of and shepherded and the countless number of church meetings you attended-- the vacations you even skipped to attend conferences.

He points to 2 Timothy 2:19

"But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”

You look down below his feet and realize he's standing on a stone monument which no one can move. On it is the very seal (which cannot change) bearing those words and you just realized that repentance was necessary for salvation.

He looks at you again and says:

"Haven't you read my book? I warned you that the road to life is narrow and that very few are saved."

"You may have sacrificed a lot for me, but I desire obedience and not sacrifice"

You plead with the Lord:

"Am I not a Christian? Am I not saved? I thought you only have to *believe* to be saved"

He looks at you for the one last time and says:

Proverbs 14:12

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

Could this be you or me?

Can you argue from scripture how this scenario cannot be? Is there any wiggle room in 2 Timothy 2:19 for someone to belong to the Lord but not turn away from wickedness?

Can you come up with an exegetical argument from God's word why this won't happen to someone who is a Christian but is living an unrepentant life in unforgiveness, hatred, envy and strife?

Why did Judas end up in Hell if Jesus called him Friend?

A question came up in church regarding whether or not Judas was saved. Some think Judas might be saved because he showed repentance by returning the silver from his betrayal and was called a friend by Jesus (Matthew 26:50)

Would Jesus let a friend go to hell?

I believe Judas is in hell without a doubt.

Matthew 26:24
The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.

Judas did have remorse-- but it was limited to only worldly grief, he didn't have Godly sorrow which leads to true repentance. I think this verse sums it up the best:

2 Corinthians 7:10
"For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."

When David committed murder, theft, adultery he didn't pity himself but he repented saying it was only against God that he sinned. David's heart was really that his relationship could be restored with God, something that he treasured more than anything else. 

Psalms 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

When Satan condemns us, he never gives us the grace to overcome, but often attacks us in a way that we sink further. When the Holy Spirit convicts us, he always gives us the grace to repent and turn back to God.

In my belief, It's also a reminder for us to *NEVER* commit suicide no matter how bad it gets.  Here's a testimony of a woman who almost did, she would have ended up in hell if she hadn't asked for forgiveness before she pulled the trigger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGQDkCi-OIY

Whenever we're in a valley, God is always there with us whether or not we can see him (Romans 8:31-39).

With Judas' fate clearly established let's ask another related question:

How could Judas who held the coveted position of being one of Jesus' disciples betray the son of God?

While preparing for a sermon a few weeks ago I realized that there's many things we can learn about the arc of Judas' tragic life by looking at Balaam's. 

Judas and Balaam both enjoyed a relationship to God that would make all of us jealous. Since Judas was in charge of the money bags, the disciples must have trusted him and he must have been close with everyone including Jesus. In the same way, Balaam was also very close to God and Numbers 22 records many direct conversations he had with Jehovah. The bible only records a couple back and forth conversations between God and his servants. Moses and Abraham come to mind at the moment so we could say Balaam enjoyed a relationship with God that few other men on earth have experienced.

Unfortunately both Balaam and Judas also seemed to be torn between serving God and money. In John 12:6 it says that Judas stole out of the money bag meant for the poor. It's possible his enslavement to riches sealed his fate long ago and God may have already given him many chances to repent as he did with Balaam. It's sad because Judas probably gave up a lot to follow Jesus for 3.5 years, but because of his divided loyalty, he had an unhappy ending. Jesus words "you cannot serve both God and money"(Matthew 6:24) was prophetic for Judas.

Although Balaam could never bring himself to curse Israel, he ultimately found a way to betray the God he served for the wages of unrighteousness (2 Peter 2:15) and seal his fate.

Revelation 2:14
But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.

If you think about Israel's history, this was really their undoing and the seed was planted by Balaam! God prevented the old generation from entering the good land because of their unbelief, but unfortunately the new generation that did enter fell into this stumbling block. Balaam's betrayal must have stun really hard! And we see in Revelation 2 that God didn't forget this betrayal but brought it back into remembrance.

I think it's also a prophetic warning to the church today. Unless Christians repent from the idols of the world and sexual immorality, they will meet the same fate of the Israelites who did the same thing. God is the same yesterday today and forever and his standards for repentance haven't changed (Ezekiel 18). All God ever wanted was for us to repent from our heart. The extreme dispensationalist doctrine that we're in the "age of grace" so repentance is unnecessary is unfair because it would give a free pass to Christians today to worship idols alongside with God, while damning the Israelites who committed the same errors long ago-- who were unfortunate just because they lived in the wrong era.

Balaam was close to God in communication, but he was never intimate with him. He knew the ways of God well, he knew God loved Israel, but he never treated God as a person who had feelings. He didn't care that God loved Israel, all he could think about was the money Balak could offer. Compare the conversations he has with God in Numbers 22 to the conversations Abraham has with God concerning Lot (Genesis 18). One is devoid of relationship and life, but the other is fulfilled with intimacy and intercession!

Judas was close to Jesus, but all he could think about probably was the benefits of being a part of the Messiah's earthly kingdom, and when that didn't pan out he decided to throw everything away.

This is a reminder for us that we can be close to God in communication (go to church meetings, read bible, pray) but we need to go further and have intimacy. It was David's intimacy with God that drove him to true repentance. If only Judas had the same intimacy as David did, things may have turned out different for him.

Does Christ live in every believer?

The Apostle Paul once asked the believers in Corinth to test if Christ was indeed living in them:

2 Corinthians 13:5
"Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!"

If Paul was asking the carnal Corinthian believers if Jesus was living in them, shouldn't we also examine ourselves who believe? How do we know if Christ is living in us? I used to think Christ was living in everyone who claimed to be a believer, but Paul seems to make it not so certain.

It turns out Jesus actually gave conditions for his indwelling in believers that went beyond simply believing:

John 14:26
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

What other conditions can we glean from the bible? For one, if Jesus and the Father are living in us, we will have the Father's love. If we don't have the Father's love in us, God probably isn't making his home in our hearts. Is there anywhere in the bible where it says believers can be without the love of the Father?

1 John 2:15
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Here the Apostle John seems to imply that God cannot be living in you if you love the world or the things of the world! How many Christians do you know that love the world? Do you love the world?

So at the very least, Christ living in us is conditioned on our loving him, obeying him and not loving the world. Is there anything else?

1 John 3:6
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

This is one of the hardest verses to take in 1 John. It clearly states that whoever lives in sin (not just stumbling in sin which we all do, but staying enslaved to sin in a way that it masters and controls us)  has never known God or seen him. There are many Christians today who are living in sin and believe they are going to enter the kingdom of heaven at the end of this age. This would explain why Jesus declares in Matthew 7:23 "Depart from me I never knew you! You workers of lawlessness" to the many believers who said to him "Lord, Lord! Didn't we do all this stuff for you?"

Anyone living in a home becomes intimately familiar with their place of living. If the home were alive, you could also say it should intimately know its inhabitants. John is saying again that Christ can't be and has never lived in believers who continue in sin. Although I'm not a full blown Calvinist, you cannot argue that this one of the strongest verses supporting the Calvinistic doctrine that believers who fall away were never saved to begin with.

Why make such a big issue of God living in us? Why is Christ living in us so important? It's because that's how Jesus fulfills the moral law of the Old Testament. Christ says in Matthew 5:17 that He didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Many take this to mean that we are no longer under the moral commandments of the Old Testament and that keeping these commandments is old school and we only need to confess our sins. Free grace Christians often point to Galatians 3:25 where Paul says we are no longer under the law. However, was Paul really talking about the moral law? Or was he just referring to the sacrificial and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, many which were fulfilled when Jesus died as the lamb of God and rose again. Does the New Testament teach that we are no longer under the moral law?

Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Read the words in bold again, and you'll realize that they all refer to keeping the moral commandments listed in the Old Testament! However, those of us living in the New Covenant have a distinct advantage, and that is that we know we don't have to keep these commandments out of our own self effort, but by simply keeping the first commandment: "love God with all your heart, soul and mind" which also results in obeying God, both Christ and the Father will make his home in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). This is why Paul says in Romans 8:1(KJV) that those walk according to their spirit and not the flesh are in Christ Jesus and therefore are no longer under condemnation.

Last but not least, before Christ's resurrection life can live in you, first you must die! As Christ was crucified, have you also crucified the desires of your flesh yet? Did you also know that unless you do so, according to Galatians 5:14 you don't really belong to him?

Galatians 5:14
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

And straight from the mouth of Jesus:

Matthew 10:38
And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Praise God though because life doesn't stop at the cross, we can share in Jesus' resurrection life today after we've died to our old carnal man. After we received John's baptism of repentance which signifies the death of our old man, our previous sinful way of living, God is faithful to send the Holy Spirit to baptize us in fire (Matthew 3:11). In the Old Testament, the Israelites would provide the sacrifice and God would send fire to consume it. In the New Covenant, we present our bodies as the living sacrifice and God sends his Holy Spirit of fire to consume us and live in us (Romans 12:1) ! How cool is that?

On an unrelated note, if Christ is indeed living in Christians who past the test, then brothers and sisters need to treat each other as if they are Jesus. Maybe a lot of strife and fighting among Christians could be avoided if everyone treated each other as if they were actually Jesus :) The Matthew 25 sheep & goat judgment also touches on this.

Colossians 1:27
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Forgotten Ministry of Repentance

When many people think of the gospel, they relate it to Jesus' death on the cross and his sacrifice for our sin. But it's interesting that the gospel was preached by Jesus and his disciples even while he was alive. What were they preaching exactly if the Lamb of God had not died yet?

So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. (Mark 6:12)

Jesus and his disciples were preaching the gospel of repentance not much unlike that of John the Baptist, telling the Jews to turn from their sin because the kingdom of God was near or even in their midst. The Messiah's disciples baptized people unto repentance in much the same way John's disciples did (John 4:1-2). Similarly the Messiah himself warned "Unless you repent you will all likewise perish." in Luke 13:3

The Greek word translated into repentance is metanoia which means a change of mind, or a conviction to live another way. Some churches stress that we only need to confess our sins and then we will be forgiven. However the bible is clear that confession without a commitment to repent by forsaking sin does not result in forgiveness. Hebrews 10:26-29 unequivocally states that Jesus' sacrifice will no longer cover our iniquity if we continue in sin after having received the gospel. If we don't repent we will still face the wrath of God, whether or not we call ourselves believers. Many Christians focus on the Lord's sacrifice and finished work on the cross without realizing that their own obedience unto repentance is required. Churches who ignore repentance contradict themselves by claiming to be ministers of the higher truths of the New Covenant when they've skipped over the basics of John's ministry of repentance. In straining a gnat, they swallow whole Camels.

In 1 Samuel 15:22, God states a theme that is repeated throughout the bible. "I desire obedience, not sacrifice." Many Christians are eager to focus on sacrifice because it's easy and does not involve our hearts, but forget the most important part which is obedience.

There is a teaching popular among Christians from dispensational background that we are all just sinners and we are saved by his grace. Christ died for sinners, however no where in the New Testament does it say we are supposed to stay sinners. Apostle Paul never addresses his letters to sinners but to saints! Jesus didn't die just to forgive our sins but to take sin away from us. Romans 6 states that we've been united with Jesus in his death, so we too can die to sin just as he died. Only after we die to sin, will we be saved by the resurrection life of Jesus who will come and make his home in our heart.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Romans 5:10)

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23)

“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. (Acts 26:19-20)

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." (John 3:36)

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)

Note that we are not advocating a sinless perfection doctrine which is a heresy per 1 John 1:8. Like any runner, those of us running the Christian race will stumble in various ways (James 3:2), but we will get back up and keep running until we finish the race. So we're just saying don't run backwards towards the door that leads to hell which you do when your flesh control the way you live (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Instead Jesus teaches us to take the cross which we can do by crucifying the desires of our flesh on the cross. If you don't then according to Galatians 5:24 and Matthew 10:38 you don't belong to Jesus!

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24) 

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. (Luke 17:33) 

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:38)

If you grew up with free grace theology, a teaching that says we're forgiven regardless of practicing sin, please read http://eternityinourheart.com/salvation/ for what we believe is a more biblical view of salvation and grace.

Our Flesh is a Monster

The flesh always opposes the spirit and vice versa. The more we feed our flesh, the more it will grow like a monster and hunger for carnal things. When you stop feeding it, it will bother you because it's hungry. Resist long enough and eventually the monster will starve to death. Many who struggle addiction and sin may just need to hold out longer and not cave in to temptation (James 4:7) and feed their spirit instead.

Our spirit works the same way, the more we feed it, the more it will grow and we will hunger for spiritual things. Furthermore when we sow according to the spirit we will reap spiritual blessings, most important of which is eternal life (Galatians 6:8). Jesus said my food is to do the will of my Father for good reason (John 4:34).

This is important because many believers who are still living according to their flesh are putting their eternities at stake. Romans 8:1 (KJV) says:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

We have to become a people that live according to the Spirit in order to escape condemnation. John 3:36 as well as many other scripture echoes this:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

If Jesus says few are saved - How do you make sure you're saved?

The disciples once asked Jesus: 

"Lord, are only a few are saved?"

Perhaps they were hoping Jesus would respond:

 "Relax, it's not that few" 

instead he answered:

"Make every effort to enter in through the narrow gate for many I tell you will strive to enter but not be able to." 

Is it really that hard to be saved? The gospels are filled with hard words from Jesus such as these. Perhaps the saddest chapter in all of the bible is Matthew 7 when Jesus talks about heaven.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Here, Jesus is refusing entrance into heaven those who performed the very works that he commanded his disciples to do (Mark 16:17) -- how can this be?

Two billion people on earth today identify themselves as christian. Of those two billion, not even half attend church regularly. The people Jesus are describing here are not even these nominal or lukewarm Christians. They're the people you think would be saved, those that are actively involved in ministry and they would probably self-identify as Spirit filled christians. Instead of sitting at home on their computers (such as myself as I'm writing this blog post haha), they're out there on the streets doing many mighty works using Jesus' name. These are the ones who are striving to enter through the narrow door, but they fail to enter!

If these people aren't saved what makes us so sure we're saved?

No one did more for Christianity outside of Jesus than the Apostle Paul, yet he wasn't sure he was okay until the moment before his death in second Timothy. Outside of that Paul mentioned that he was working out his salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12).

How can this be? How can so few be saved? How can we stay on the narrow path that leads to life? This is a question I've been asking the Lord over and over again recently and I think He finally gave me the answer by pointing me to Proverbs 4:23:

Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.

Many in church have used this verse to warn youth against dating relationships. The inevitable breakup from dating always results in a broken heart. This verse does apply well here, but the Lord made me realize it's much, much broader than that!

God is the source of all life and it's our heart that connects us to him. When you take away God who is source of everything good  (all good things come from God, Psalms 127, James 1:17), you are left with hell which is the result of being separated from God.

Who does our heart belong to? The bible says we have been bought with a price, we are not our own (1 Cor 6:19-20). So our heart belongs to God. Yet God doesn't force himself on us, but he gives us a choice. 

If we choose to give our heart to things other than God we will ultimately serve whatever we give our heart to. Why is this so serious?

Jesus taught that a servant cannot serve two masters (Matt 6:24), so we only have one master we serve in this life-- and that's determined by who has our heart!

In describing the relationship between servant and master Jesus said 'A servant is not greater than his master, as they persecuted me they will also persecute you' (John 15:20) . So we are never greater than the master whom we serve. 

Many people today don't believe in God, but they ultimately serve a god whether they like it or not. These can be gods of money, entertainment, lust, fame, knowledge etc. What is the end of people who serve the things of the world?

Jesus said "heaven and earth will pass away but my words never will" (Luke 21:33). So if the fate of everything in this world is destruction and if we choose to be mastered by the things of this world, how can we expect to deserve a better fate than destruction? Because a servant is not greater than his master, the fallen angels who served Satan deserve no less of a punishment than Satan himself who is thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation 20.

In the same way, would you like to share in the same fate as Jesus by making him your master? Jesus died, but he overcame death! Not only that but he ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven and he will rule and reign for eternity. How's that for a destiny compared to eternal destruction? Of course because a servant is not greater than his master, we can't expect to sit at the right hand of the Father, but the bible does say we will rule and reign with him for eternity.

So how do we make sure Jesus is our master? It's by guarding our heart and making sure it belongs to Jesus so that he can live in our heart and restore it. Looked at in another way, Jesus said a corrupt tree produces bad fruit but a good tree always produces good fruit (Luke 6:43). In John 15 Jesus likens believers to branches, and only the branches that bear fruit are kept alive, the rest are thrown into the fire. So if we want to live for eternity we have to produce good fruit and we do that by taking care of our tree, which is our heart.

1st Peter likens Satan to a roaring lion that is seeking people to devour. So Jesus tells us to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves (Matt 10:16). The Apostle Paul also writes that we should be aware of Satan's schemes. Because Satan wants to take as many souls with him to hell, he knows the best way to do so is by corrupting the human heart, or stealing it away for things other than God. Our heart is the prize that both Satan and God are after!

After I understood this, I had the answer to another question to God. If the door is so narrow that leads to life, how can Jesus say his yoke is easy and his burden is light? The answer is all of us has control over who we give our heart to. Jesus says if we give our heart to him he'll come and live inside of us-- we're not the ones working out our salvation, but Jesus is, through us!

Nowadays many people in church including parents try to discipline youth by restricting sinful behavior when they really should be focusing on their heart-- but it's hard to blame them! Galatians 5:19-21 says

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions  and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul gives a list of things that if practiced will deny you entrance to heaven. Just to make it clear to the Galatians, he says "I warn you, as I did before" as if to drive home a message to ones who thought they could be saved while involved in sin. Pretty much everyone on earth fails the test that Paul gives in these verses, as he does also in Ephesians 5. And this is why the road is so narrow! If you give this list of things not to do to the average person, it will seem like a *huge* burden? Who can follow it?

Perhaps over 95% of adult males with internet access look at pornography-- boom! you could have just stopped at 'sexual immorality' and most of all men would already end up in hell. Or take envy or self ambition -- aren't many guilty of this even in church?

But if we realize all we have to do is change our heart and give it to Jesus and guard it from idols, that demand seems like it's within everyone's reach, and we can accept that ultimately we do have control and it's not a big burden to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, this is also why everyone will be without excuse on judgement day, keeping in mind that the Holy Spirit is there to help us repent, so we are not alone.

The blood of Jesus has freed us from obeying sin (Romans 6) and serving the elementary lust of this world, and all we have to do is guard our heart from idols and give it to Jesus and he'll do everything for us! If our heart is right, we won't be living in sin and obeying its desires but we'll be producing the good fruits of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Jesus could tell the thief next to him "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise" but damn the Pharisees who had tried to serve God all their life in vain, because one had the right heart, but the others had filthy ones.

This is also why Apostle Paul encourages the whole church to pursue the gift of prophecy. Prophecy is the best gift because it allows us to see into people's hearts so we can minister to them.

In summary, the answer to how can we make sure we're saved is: take care of your heart!

This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. - Jeremiah 31:33

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. - Matt 5:8 

Do We Live in a Digital Simulation?

People once believed the world was infinitely divisible.

If you were to take a string and cut in half:

And cut those halves down again:

And again and again..

You would think you could do this indefinitely... but you can't!

At some point you will reach a length known as the Planck length:

1.61619926 × 10-35 meters

It's impossible to measure anything smaller than this length. Below this level objects stop becoming objects and lose their dimensions. Objects at this scale also behave in strange ways far beyond human intuition. 

There's also something known as Planck time:

5.39106(32) × 10−44 s

This is the time it takes for light to travel one Planck length, and it's the smallest unit of time.

The universe we live in, rather than being infinitely divisible is granular - or you could even say digital! Some scientists even suspect that the universe is a hologram.

Could it be that the world that we live in is a digital simulation? Could it be that there is another reality hiding behind the virtual reality we live in?

The bible actually alludes to this in many places! Here's one verse:

2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

According to God's word the world we see is not real and passing away, but there is a reality underlying the world we live in that is *real* and eternal!

In the movie, The Matrix (1999), the inhabitants of earth are stuck in a virtual reality simulation but very few of them realize it. While the world they live in is fake, the humans behind the people living in the matrix are real. The real life people and their digital avatars are also connected in the sense that if you were to die in the 'matrix', you would die in real life.

Did you know that the bible describes something like this! Every human on this earth has a body. But connected to the flesh we inhabit is a living soul which lives in a spiritual dimension. This unseen spiritual dimension could include the second heavens, the dwelling place of fallen angels and demons as well as the third heavens where God is.

Jesus once said:

Matthew 16:26
What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

According to God's value system, one soul is worth more than a whole world without souls! Did you know God cares more about preserving your one soul than the entire universe? Could it be because the things of this world are not actually real and are passing away?

Many people who have had near death experiences report that after they left their bodies the reality they experienced was more real than the life they previously lived in. One person even said that the life we live in is a dream compared to when you leave your body.

In Luke 12:15 Jesus warns his disciples

Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions."

Are any of us still holding on our digital goods and dreams at the expense of what is actually real and eternal-- our souls? In Matthew 16:25 Jesus says

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

If our worldview is not transformed then this is one of the hardest verses to take in the bible. However if we put on the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and take on God's view and value system of the world then it becomes much easier.

Jesus seems to set such a high standard for us as he does on the sermon on the mount, but he also says in Matthew 11:28 that his yoke is easy and his burden is light:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Today many souls around us are enslaved by the matrix we live in which heaps a continuous avalanche of worries, anxieties and lusts at its people. Some are blinded to the reality that lies behind this world. Others know the reality exists but choose to ignore it and live their lives comfortably.

Are we willing to wake up like Neo did and take the red pill? Are we willing to give up our lives to Jesus so that he can give it back to us again in eternity?

2 Corinthians 4:17
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

The price of our own lives may seem high, but the reward will be immeasurably higher.

1 Corinthians 2:9
However, as it is written: "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived" -- the things God has prepared for those who love him--