Hi! My name is Tito and I reside in Southern California. Welcome to our slide presentation … Lord, what must I do to have eternal life?
We are going to answer this question twice. Firstly … directly from our Father in heaven. And secondly … indirectly … by using references from the Bible. So let’s get started.
Lord, what must I do to have eternal life? ... Here is God’s direct answer … "This is why I died on the cross ... so that forgiveness of sins is now available to those who repent."
Now, I understand that you may have a lot of questions … and I do not have answers to any of them. So in the same way as I asked our Father ... I am asking you to pray and ask our Father directly … Lord, what must I do to have eternal life?
Only our Father can tell you the correct answer. Only our Father can tell you that repentance is the key to eternal life. I cannot do it, my slides can not do it, my presentation can not do it... even this video can not do it. Only our Father can tell you by revealing the answer directly to your heart.
About me … my disclaimers … my name is Tito and I'm not a bible scholar. Actually I'm not a scholar of anything. I do not have any formal qualifications in theology and religion. And my last bible class was in the third grade. I was about 9 years old at the time. Even today, my understanding of our God is elementary … After reading stories from the bible ... I arrived at the conclusion that I am guilty of breaking each of the Ten Commandments on a daily basis. I am amazed at how many times I sin everyday!
So here is my punchline. Listen to my story today … but don't do what I do. I'm not pious. I'm not religious. I'm in the penalty box. There is a name for it … it is called “permanent state of sin.”
My story … how I arrived at the answer to the question of eternal life is a private testimony. It’s not public ... and it's not going to be part of our faith. It’s not going to be a doctrine. I'm not teaching anything … I'm simply sharing. I'm not going to correct … not edit … not modify … not add … not subtract … to or from ... any teachings and any doctrines of any church. You may continue what you believe in … and you continue what you do not believe. Ask our Father what you must do to have eternal life … and ask God our Father where repentance fits in your life.
My story … it is my biggest aha moment … it is about a light that turned on when I prayed to God and directly asked the question ... ‘Lord, what must I do to have eternal life?’ I was sitting on the edge of my bed … a light just turned on in front of me. The light introduced itself as our Lord Jesus and this is what He said … "This is why I died on the cross, so that forgiveness of sins is now available to those who repent."
And so here I am … I stand before you today … doing what our Lord Jesus asked me to do … which is to share the answer … Lord what must I do to have eternal life? … Repent and be forgiven.
Again, I emphasize … pray to our Father and ask Him directly so that there will be no doubt in your mind.
I will pause here … Did our Father already reveal to you that repentance is the key to eternal life? If so … then stop here. Stop watching this video. The revelation you receive from our Father is perfect. There is no need to proceed with the rest of this imperfect presentation. But for the rest of us … let us continue …
The answer to the question of eternal life can also be found indirectly from the pages of the Bible. It is my understanding that the Bible is local in your area, it is easily accessible and acceptable to all of us.
There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent. This message is true and trustworthy. But the following is my presentation. It is my best effort to recall how our Lord Jesus explained repentance to me. The technical errors in it are mine and mine alone. The last thing I want to happen is … if you try to validate the message of repentance and forgiveness by using the quality of my presentation. It will not work, because I'm human with errors. I am just a delivery boy. I'm delivering a perfect message from our Father about repentance and forgiveness using an imperfect presentation. How far repentance will go into your life … only the Father knows.
We already have all the pieces together. There is no new idea that will be presented here. We are simply going to rearrange existing ideas ... so that we can recognize the message of repentance and forgiveness.
At the end of this presentation … you will know exactly what you need to do to have eternal life. The only question that remains is … what are you going to do next?
What must I do to have eternal life? There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent. Now, I understand that there are more popular … and more interesting ideas out there … that can possibly answer this question of eternal life. To name a few … love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul … love your neighbor as you love yourself … we have hope, faith, and charity … then there is obedience to His commands … and trusting the Lord in everything we do. There are many possible answers. However, when I asked this question …. ‘Lord, what must I do to have eternal life?’ … the answer I received was ... there is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.
So … in this presentation … I'm going to champion repentance. Repentance will be the superstar.
Let's start our journey. You are here on the left … that green dot … and our destination … yours and mine … is on the right … and that is eternal life. As you know … the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And that straight line is called repentance. The fastest way to have eternal life is to simply repent.
For the rest of this presentation … we are going to put repentance on trial.
Who else knows about repentance?
What is repentance?
Where and when can repentance be done?
Why is repentance important?
and how is repentance applied in our lives?
We will put repentance on trial by asking these questions.
Let's take the first one. Who else knows about repentance?
This is our Lord Jesus when He was teaching the crowd. This situation is unique because this was the first day, the first hour, and the first minute when our Lord first taught the people … and this is what He said … repent ....
This is John the Baptist … whenever he talked to the people … he taught them about repentance.
This is Peter. This is the first time Peter talked to the crowd … and this is what he said ... "Repent and your sins may be blotted out."
This is Paul standing before King Agrippa during the trial of his life … and this is what Paul said ... "I preach the need to repent and turn to God."
This is our Lord Jesus when he sent His 12 Apostles … and this is what He said to them ... "Preach that people should repent."
This is our Lord Jesus teaching at the temple. The religious leaders are standing on the upper right corner … they are wearing the darker clothes. And it was their understanding … that they are holy and pious … that they do not have to repent anymore. But this is what our Lord Jesus said to them … "I tell you, unless you repent, you too will all perish."
So what is repentance anyway? The textbook definition … repentance is sorrow of the soul … a conversion of the heart toward God … hatred for the sin committed … together with the resolution not to sin again … which implies the intention to change one's life. Wow! … that is a lot of information.
However, if you want to see repentance in its perfection … the one that is acceptable to our Father … all you have to do is look at our children. Observe how they talk to God in their prayers … and how they tell God they are sorry. You see … children have perfected praise by perfecting repentance.
So where and when can repentance be done? There is a short story in the Bible … about a woman by the well. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ told her … "God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth" … that means, we can repent anywhere and any time.
So why is repentance important? There are some basic attributes of God that will help us understand why repentance is very important … God is all just … all love … and all merciful.
Let me explain … this is the scale of justice … and God's justice simply says … you sin, you die. That means if you sin … regardless of how minor … you die. God’s standard of justice requires perfection from each one of us!
We don't have to go very far to see an example of God's justice. We have the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve … they ate the forbidden apple … and as a consequence they were sent out of the Garden of Eden. Now remember … it's just an apple and ... paradise was lost.
Also, another consequence … the ground used to bear fruit for food very easily … but not anymore. After the fall … Adam has to till the ground. In other words … Adam now has to work. So, just in case you have not realized it yet … tomorrow morning … you're going to wake up because you also have to go to work. This is a direct consequence of Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden.
Another consequence … death entered into the world … all of us will experience pain, get sick, get old, and eventually die – that is about 7.5 billion people in 2016. All of us are destined to die … because of an apple.
Another consequence … child bearing becomes painful.
Look at all these consequences … just because of an apple. This is God's justice.
This is the scale of God's mercy ... and it is very simple … you repent, you will be forgiven. A simple repentance … and your sin is wiped out. Just in case you have not realized it yet … even if your sins pile up … and their height is higher than the highest mountain … and your repentance is as small as the smallest of seeds … through God’s mercy … you are forgiven and He will not remember your sins anymore.
Now in the old testament … there is a very good example of God’s mercy … the story of the Bronze Serpent. The people offended God. God sent snakes to kill them … but for those who repented Moses was instructed to put a snake on a pole. All those who look at the snake on the pole … even if they were bitten … did not die.
We also have an example of God’s mercy in the New Testament … it's called the Cross … all those who believe in Jesus for what He has done on the cross are saved and have eternal life.
So what must I do to have eternal life? Firstly, you have to have faith in Christ. On the lower left we have the scale of justice … sin and death. On the upper right … we have the scale of mercy … repentance and forgiveness. If you want to have eternal life … you have to move yourself from the scale of justice to the scale of mercy. Something like this …
God’s love for us made this possible. We can freely move … from the scale of justice to the scale of mercy by simply repenting of our sins … because Christ died on the cross and paid the demands of justice which is death… in other words … His death on the cross paid for our death.
So our response is repentance. If you repent of your sins … you need not fear the scale of justice … because you are forgiven … and your scale now is in the scale of mercy. God's response to our repentance is forgiveness.
Incidentally … that crossing from justice to mercy … through repentance and forgiveness is the Gospel … the good news … there is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.
Just in case you have not realized it yet … if there had been no cross … repentance would have been useless. Even if you repent … you are still subject to judgment because the demands of justice must still be satisfied which is ... death for anybody who sinned. But our Lord Jesus died on the cross for us … and I thank God … so today … a simple repentance is more than sufficient to wipe out even mountains of sin.
How is repentance applied in our lives? The answer is in the Bible ... Book of Revelation ... chapter 20 … the story is about the great white throne of judgment. On this throne everybody will have to stand before God to be judged.
Let's go through this story line by line. Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened . And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life, and the dead were judged according to their works by the things written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
There are two sets of books … one is plural … “Books.” And the other set is singular … “book”.
There is the concept of “works,” and there is the concept of “life.” Let us simplify these concepts. The books … the one that is plural, contains the works that we have done … whereas the book which is singular contains the names of all those who will have eternal life.
The books of works is used in the scale of justice … and the book of life is used in the scale of mercy.
Let's role play … what will happen on judgment day. Books of works will be open … and the book of life will also be opened. And then each one of us will be called … let's say we are John Doe … and we have six sins. And then there is Mary Doe … she has six sins too.
However, Mary repented of her sins. Therefore her name is now going to be transferred to the book of life. But wait a minute … Mary still has her sins. To understand what will happen to Mary’s sins … all you have to do is remember what you saw earlier … when Peter spoke. And this is what Peter said …"Repent and your sins may be blotted out." The key is “blotted out.” So this is what will happen … Mary’s sin number 1 is blotted out because she repented. She also repented of her sin number 2 … so that gets blotted out …. number 3, 4, 5, and 6. And by the time she finished repenting all of her sins … this is what it looks like ... only her name remains.
That's why the Books of works is plural … because in addition to names … it also has all our works listed. But the Book of life is singular … a lot shorter … because it has only names in it.
John Doe’s unrepented sins will be subject to judgment. However, since Mary repented of her sins … there is no judgment for her … because there is nothing to judge … all her sins were blotted out. Mary already passed from death into eternal life. And this is referenced in the Bible in the Gospel of John ... chapter 5 ... verse 24 ... If you repent, there is no judgment for you … you already passed from death into eternal life.
So, going back, I was sitting on the edge of my bed and prayed to God … Lord what must I do to have eternal life? A light turned on in front of me … the light identified itself as our Lord Jesus … and this is what He said … "This is why I died on the cross, so that forgiveness of sins is now available to those who repent.” Knowing how hard it is to believe my story … and determine whether my experience is real or not … I encourage everybody to go to our Father directly and ask the same question … Lord, what must I do to have eternal life? Only our Father can tell you that repentance is the answer and key to eternal life. I cannot do it, my slides cannot do it, my presentations cannot do it … even this video cannot do it. Only our Father can tell you and our Father has put the answer directly into your heart.
Again, my name is Tito ... and you can reach me at my website gospel77.com