" A Priceless Passport "
Robert Newman, Indianapolis, USA
Many years ago as a high school student I was motivated to start reading
the Bible in a serious way after I had committed my life and soul to God.
I had grown up attending church with my parents and thought I was pretty
well along the path to heaven, in spite of some misbehavior along the
way. But after a public admission of a conversion experience before the
church one evening, I felt an uplifting and warmth towards God that began
a sequence in my behavior and service to God that has carried me through
60 years of spiritual, emotional and intellectual fulfillment.
My wife, Barbara, whom I met and married when we had just turned
nineteen, had a similar spiritual experience at a younger age than
myself. We have been happily married for 55 years and served together as
career missionaries in Latin America and Spain for 50 years. My early
Bible reading and subsequent serious study both private and in groups
with my peers opened my mind to the deep subject of how great our God is
in having communicated with men over the course of history. He confirmed
his creative acts in forming this world, we human beings, and all the
living creatures and living plants. But more than that he explained his
reasons and purposes so that we could identify with this total purposeful
world and find our individual place in His great all compassing plan.
In my service as a missionary my main assignment has been to produce and
distribute the Bible and Christian literature. So I can humbly share that
I have personally handled and sold tons of Bibles and books all over the
Hispanic world both at the wholesale and retail level. But what has
surprised me most has been to see people open and read the Bible for
themselves and comment in amazement, "I didn't know THAT was in the
Bible!" The "THAT" was usually some portion of revealed truth that spoke
hope and finality to some doubt or problem they personally were
experiencing. The theme of eternal life and the kingdom of God are
evident all through the scripture. Most important is the offer of God to
all who believe in Him that they can possess this kind of life (against
the obvious fact that all men pass through death.) Secondly, the future
is in God's hands and he invites us to join Him in that future as
citizens of the "kingdom of God." The Apostle John referred to this fact
in John 17:3-5 "Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you
glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father,
glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the
world began."
And then a bit later he makes the comment, "My prayer is not for them
alone (the apostles and disciples he had taught to carry on His ministry)
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that
all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you."
I have seen many come to believe in the Son of God and experience
transformed lives with His help. And now I address you my friend and
reader, inviting you to believe on the Son of God who came to give His
life as a witness and sacrifice for the payment of your sins before God
so that you can know your sins have been forgiven and you are accepted
into this "kingdom.
I have owned and used maybe six U.S. passports in my international
travels over 50 years and I can assure you NOBODY gets on a plane or
enters another country without one." Your passport or credential into
God's presence depends on your having God approval on your life and
acceptance for citizenship. John 1:12-13 admonishes us, "Yet to all who
received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to
become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of
human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.".
The Apostle Paul referred to this fact of life in Philippians 3:20-21
"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from
there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who , by the power that enables him to
bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so
that they will be like his glorious body."
If you don't know for sure
that you have eternal life,
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"A Priceless Passport"
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