A choice to be made

The Bible is very clear that we all have a choice to make in this life - the most important choice we will ever make. Truth calls for a response. We can face the light of God's truth as it is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, and any truth that will also reveal about ourselves, or we can continue to avoid it. If, however, we avoid it, then we will have no choice but to face it fully one day because"[God] has set a day when he will judge all the world's people with fairness. And he has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

While on earth, Jesus claimed that we would be judged in the light of the truth he himself had spoken. "There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48). In that day, God "will show what is hidden in the dark and what is in everyone's heart" (1 Corinthians 4:5). Unfortunately, it will be too late then to accept his forgiveness and his transforming love. Our choice will have already been made. In the solemn words of the Bible, we will be forever "shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). It is significant that we are told three times in the last two chapters of the Bible that heaven will be no place for those who have lived in deceit (Revelation 21:8, 27; 22:15).