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HOLDING NOTHING BACK
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 11, 2025 – I think of how disappointing so many of God’s children have been to him, how he put his hopes on Adam, and Adam betrayed him, and so he put his hopes on Adam’s sons, and Cain betrayed him, and so he put his hopes on mankind in general, and mankind in general betrayed him – everyone except for Noah, and so he put his hopes on Noah, and Noah stood firm in God.
And then came Abraham, who also stood firm, and after him Isaac and Jacob, both standing firm. But Jacob’s twelve sons were pretty much a disappointment, except for Joseph. And then, years later, came Moses, and David, and Elijah, and Daniel, all mostly standing firm in God.
And then came Jesus, who was a whole other level of what it means to stand firm. Never once a disappointment to God and never once betraying him, Jesus was the only one God publicly declared as pleasing him.
That’s a hard act to follow, though Paul did his best, as did the disciples, once they were born again.
And then came us.
Poor God! He doesn’t have much to work with these days, though he knows our hearts and so he knows we’re doing our best. At least I hope we’re doing our best, because that’s what we’ll have to declare with a clear conscience when we stand before God at the Judgement. We won’t get away with: “Well, as you know, I tried to do this and I tried to do that, but it didn’t work out so well”, because if we only try and then walk away when things get too hard or too costly, never bringing anything to fruition, that’s not going to stand us in very good stead. That’s not going to get us where we want to go.
And then there are those who presume a reward that should never be presumed. Jesus calls them “goats” and describes them as giving the impression of standing firm, while underneath there’s only evil. These are the professional preachers, the televangelists, the YouTube prophets, the wearers of long flowing robes in echoey halls, all demanding respect and payment for their services while never giving God that one thing he asks of them – their heart.
Because if we don’t give God our heart, he can’t work through us to do what needs to be done. We can’t bring anything of value to fruition without God working through us, no matter how hard we try. Jesus said: “None is good but God.” If God isn’t working through us, nothing we do has any real or lasting value. Sure, we can still do things—lots of things, mountains and mountains of things—but we can’t do anything of value without God.
I think of how disappointing many of us have been to God without knowing it, simply because we chose not to give God our heart. We gave it instead to someone or something else, or we buried it under so many layers of burdens, we forgot we even had a heart, let alone that it was owed to God, because it is owed to God: That’s his first and greatest Commandment.
If you’re holding back from giving God your heart, don’t. If you’re holding back even a little of your heart, don’t. We’re to love God with all our heart, holding nothing back, and to do all things as if unto God. Noah showed us how it’s done. Abraham showed us how it’s done. Daniel showed us how it’s done. But most of all, Jesus showed us how it’s done, so we don’t have the excuse that we don’t know how to give God our heart. All our heart. Here, now, and forever.
No excuses.
HOW’S YOUR HEART?
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 2, 2023 – The state of your soul at the instant of your death determines your eternity, determines where you’ll spend your eternity, and there are only two places you can go: Heaven or not Heaven.
I don’t know about you, but that is a very sobering thought to me.
I remember hearing it first from a professor years ago, when I was an atheist. I recall very little about my time at university, but I remember my professor saying that the state of your soul at the instant of your death determines your eternity. In hindsight, it was a strange thing for an atheist to tuck away in her mind for safekeeping. I never thought about death in those days, other than for romanticizing suicide. Years later, a few months before I was reborn, I had a revelation about pain and death, that pain doesn’t end at death; that death doesn’t end the pain, it just keeps on going. After that revelation, I never thought about committing suicide again.
We don’t know when our death will come, unless God chooses to reveal it to us. I think that’s a good thing, if God does that for us (you can ask him to do it), because then we can take care of any loose ends that need to be taken care of. We can clean out the dust of any lingering grudges or hurts that might have accumulated in the nooks and crannies of our heart. Lingering grudges have no place in Heaven. We can make our peace, as they say, if God lets us know that our time is near. We can prepare to meet our Maker.
If, instead, death comes when we least expect it, without prior warning, that means we’d better be prepared to go at any time. That means we need to clean out any lingering grudges or hurts as soon as they come to mind, not put them off until later. We may not have later to deal with them.
There are many Christians who don’t believe that the state of your soul at death determines your eternity. They instead believe that Jesus did the work for them and all they have to do is state their belief in Jesus and claim his blood as a cover for their sins. They plan to stand before God on Judgement Day and plead the blood of Jesus over them. Certainly, Jesus did the hard slogging of paying the sin debt that we’d carried since Adam, but we still need to pull our own spiritual weight in the Kingdom. None of us gets a free ride.
So you’ve died and you’re standing before God pleading the blood of Jesus, and God asks you about your hard heart and all the grudges you carried around with you for years. And you know, you can’t lie to God at the Judgement. You also can’t change the state of your soul at the Judgement. There are no last-minute reprieves at that point. There’s just the books being opened and read, and your name indelibly written in either one or the other. You’re either a sheep or a goat. You’re either in the Book of Life or you’re not. You either know God as your Dad or you don’t. You’re either reborn or you’re not. There’s just the one or the other at Judgement, and no-one with any hardness of heart whatsoever gets into Heaven, no matter how much they plead the blood of Jesus.
That is a spiritual fact. You may not believe it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Scripture tells us all the things that will keep us out of Heaven, and a hard heart is at the top of the list. But most self-professing Christians I know have the hardest of hearts, holding grudges against close relatives or former friends or colleagues, or former priests or ministers, or former spouses. Did you know that even holding grudges against authority figures will harden your heart? Paul says we should strive to live at peace with everyone, and Jesus says to love our enemies. That’s the stuff that softens your heart to a nice putty-like state, which is the kind of consistency that God’s looking for in a heart and the kind that will get you into Heaven.
We all have old hurts that the devil likes to tempt us with every now and then. The only way to deal with those old hurts when they pop up is to say what Jesus said on the cross: “Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they’re doing.” I find it works every time. As soon as I say it (and God knows exactly who I mean when I say it to him), the hurt melts away and all that’s left in my newly soft-as-putty heart is love and compassion for the person or persons who hurt me. It works every time, that phrase. Every single time.
I don’t know what you’re nursing in your heart right now or what you think is unforgiveable on the part of someone who hurt you, but please consider what you’ve read here today. No hardness of heart gets into Heaven. No grudges, no matter how justified you think they may be, will be allowed in the hearts of those who get to go Home. The blood of Jesus will not cover a hard heart in someone who’s been warned to repent (this is your warning) and chose not to.
Again, I don’t know what’s in your heart and who it might be hardened against, but I do know from personal experience that the devil will try to harden your heart at every chance he gets, because he knows that’s one of the main stumbling blocks for people on the Way, and he knows that hard hearts do not make it Home.
Please search your heart right now, and if there’s any hardness in it, remember what Jesus said on the cross and say it yourself over that person or persons. Just say: “Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they’re doing.” Say it as many times as you have to, night or day, every time the devil tries to tempt you back into hardness of heart. God will know who you mean when you say it, and then he’ll soften your heart.
The owner of a hard heart will not get into Heaven, and the state of your soul (which is the state of your heart) at the instant of your death determines where you spend eternity.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 