It’s funny to see the various stories and pranks that take place on April 1st. Most are in good fun. For instance, the “Gmail in Motion” page is one of the many things you may find on the web today.
I had been trying to think of a fun way to add to the day, something like the “announcement” I’d posted a few years ago regarding a supposed merger between Hasegawa and Tamiya.
But as I thought on this more, God really impressed on me a need to be a bit more serious. While most of the April Fool’s jokes you see today will be quite humorous and light-hearted, there is a Truth that there is no fooling about, and cannot be dismissed.
The world today will tell you that there are many ways to heaven. Or that there is no heaven. Maybe even that if there is a heaven, everyone goes to it except really, really bad people. Friend, that talk is simply foolishness. But not the lighthearted foolishness of an April Fools joke. It is foolishness that lasts into an eternity, with frightful consequences.
You see, there truly is heaven. Jesus told us so in John 14: 2-3. “2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.“
But there is also Hell- a place separate from God. Jesus spoke of this in Mark 9. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.“
What separates us from God, and dooms us to Hell, is our sin. Any sin. In God’s eye, there is no “big” sin or “little” sin. Held up before the righteousness of God, all sin makes us unworthy. Whether it be gossip, or crimes against humanity on the scale of the Nazis in WWII. Sin is sin, and causes us to be separated from God.
And all of us sin. Romans 3:23 tells us “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Me, you, everyone. None can puff themselves up as having not sinned. To be human is to sin.
Yet if Jesus said He has prepared a place for us in Heaven, but our sin has condemned us to Hell, what are we to do?
That is the wonder of the Gospel, friend. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) What that means is Jesus came to die on the Cross, and then rose again on the third day, to pay the price for our sins. All we must do is ask forgiveness of our sin, and accept His gift of salvation.
How? Romans 10:9-10 tells us quite plainly. “9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.“
We must turn from our sin, and turn to Jesus. Only He can clean us up. Only He can pay the price. Only He can stand for us on our day of judgement.
Dear friend, don’t be fooled by the world on this day or any other day into thinking that your eternity is nothing to consider. It is truly the only question in life to consider. Sooner or later, you will stand before God, the God of Abraham, Isaac , and Jacob, God the Father of our Savior Jesus, God Who gives us the Holy Spirit. The God who created the universe and all that is in it. We will all stand before Him one day, and our place in eternity, Heaven or Hell, will rest on one simple question.
What did you do when confronted with the Gospel of Jesus?
I urge you, if you have not asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, to do so today. You can find out more about that here. Do not wait, dear friends. We never know when our time of judgement will confront us.