Recently I went to a concert with some of my coworkers.
We went to a church in Windermere to see Tenth Avenue North, Royal Tailor and
KB. Prior to the concert we purchased
our tickets in advance online. We even
decided to get the VIP package so we could have reserved seating and attend the
special Question and Answer session they were going to have for the VIP ticket
holders. The evening of the concert we
met at work and the four of us rode together to the church where the concert
was being held. Before we left the
parking lot we all made sure we had our tickets and we all knew if anyone was
going to forget theirs it would be me!
We arrived at the church about 30 minutes before the
doors opened and we all stood in line with our tickets. When the doors opened and it was our turn to
enter the church the person at the door was scanning the tickets to be sure
they hadn’t been used. Everyone in my
group went through with no problems… everyone except me! My ticket wouldn’t scan and to be honest it
was a little embarrassing because me being human I thought everyone must think
I copied a ticket or something. Two
people tried to scan my ticket and it just would not work. They called a lady over and told her the
situation and she too tried to scan my ticket but it would not work. She said, “don’t worry I have a list of the
names of the people who bought their tickets online. Let me check my list and see if you are on
it.” She pulled out a thick stack of papers
with the names of people that bought their tickets online and she searched it
and sure enough there in black and white was my name, Savannah Parvu –VIP. She looked up from her papers with a smile on
her face and said, “Your name is on the list you can come in.”
When she told me not to worry I wanted to tell her I
wasn’t worried… I was frustrated! I knew
I paid for my ticket and didn’t copy it and I was embarrassed and felt like I
was holding up my group. After that I
had to go to another table to get a sign for my seat and once again they had to
find my name, which took a long time because they could not find it, but they
did!
That night during the concert God showed me why I went
through trouble getting in. If I just
went through with no problems like everyone else did I would not have
experienced what he taught me that night.
You see… everyone wants their “ticket to heaven.” They think they can be a “good person” and do
enough good to outweigh the bad and that’s all that matters. Jesus says in Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who
says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one
who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. That means if you say a “prayer” to receive
your “ticket to heaven,” but never truly surrender your heart to the Lord and
do the work of the Lord your “ticket” is not a ticket at all.
In Revelation 21:27 we learn that only those whose name
is written in the Lambs book of Life will enter the gates of heaven. This means even if you’ve been a “good
person” and think you have your “ticket” to heaven, but you haven’t surrendered
your life to the Lord your name will not be written in the Lambs book of Life
and you will not enter the gates of heaven.
Just like when I showed up at the concert that night with my ticket and
the lady had to check the list to make sure I was on it… if my ticket wasn’t
valid and my name wasn’t on the list I would not have been able to enter the
doors of the concert.
Let’s spend some time asking God to search our hearts and
show us if the life we are living is truly for Him or if we are just trying to
be a “good person” without surrendering our life to Him.
