A Two-Part Ticket to Heaven

My grandson loves trains, and being the doting Nana that I am, I like to indulge his passion.

Whether taking train, plane, or boat (or anything that requires a ticket), tickets often come in two parts. One part is given to the person responsible for insuring that all passengers have a ticket. The other part is a receipt and our guarantee that we have a reserved spot just for us.

The older--I mean...more mature--I get, the more I realize that we human beings are an odd (and often sad) lot. We have the tendency to vacillate to extremes. Middle ground is often hard to come by. In many realms the two extremes are either a free ride or excessive work. This is true for the physical world as well as the spiritual world.

But the truth is that it doesn't have to be so complicated, and it's not free. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us about the two-part ticket to heaven:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. ~Ephesians 2:8-9 (NASB)

FAITH
All that is required on our part to enter heaven is our faith in Jesus as our Savior and Lord. Now at first faith may seem like a free ride, but it's really not. It's more than just saying you believe in something or someone. It requires you putting your life on the line to prove your faith.

I know I've used the analogy of a chair before, but bear with me just in case someone out there is reading this for the first time. I can say that I trust a chair to hold up my weight, but my faith isn't proven or practiced until I actually sit in the chair.

Faith in Jesus requires that we depend on Him to do something for us that we could never do for ourselves, and that's where the other part of the ticket comes in to play.

GRACE
Grace is God's unmerited favor. We humans are puny and weak...sinful. At the same time, God is perfect and holy. Our sin disqualifies us from being in His presence.

But praise God, He made a way for us in spite of our sinfulness. Through Jesus' death on the cross our sin debt was paid.  Once we place our faith in Him, His grace covers us so that when God looks at us, He sees Jesus, His One and Only Son and the perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

That's why it's not a free ride. This part of our ticket cost Jesus His blood and life. Jesus and His grace are our guarantee that we have a spot in heaven reserved for us.

Let's also consider the opposite extreme. We can't work our way to heaven either. Why? Look back at Ephesians 2:8-9 for the answer. Because of our sinfulness, if we could work our way to God's eternal presence, we would boast that we did it on our own. Pride is one thing God absolutely abhors.

The truth is that no matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we work, we can't be righteous enough, religious enough, or rich enough to earn our ticket to heaven. I love the way Mark Twain puts it: “Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”