What should i do to inherit eternal life

Our Campuses. Creek Road Carina Springfield Menu. Want to know more about Christianity? Christianity Courses. Christianity Explored Reason for God Menu. Catch up on Sunday. Bible-Talks Menu. Growth Groups. Growth Group Resources Menu. During the week. Quarterly Church Life. Register for the next Church Life Menu. Grow Daily. There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

This section of Scripture is important because Roman Catholics often use it to support their view that keeping the law of God is a necessary part of maintaining their right standing with God so they can be saved on the Day of Judgment. Unfortunately, they will use verses like this and ignore others that teach we are justified by faith apart from the works of the law Romans The person was asking what good works he must do to inherit eternal life v.

He believed that his salvation was dependent upon his faith in God and his works of the Law. Jesus answered him according to his beliefs and quoted the Ten Commandments Exodus and Lev. Notice that Jesus called Lev. The man boasted that he was keeping all these laws. Was he? Jesus told the man to sell his possessions and give it to the poor i. The man failed to do this v.

His faith and works of the Law could not save him because he could not keep it. But, please understand this, that we are certainly not allowed into heaven if our lives lack any good works at all! We are saved by faith in Christ the Saviour alone, but that saving faith in Christ is never alone; always it is accompanied by such graces as speaking as the dying thief spoke to his companion about Christ and saying to him that he should not talk the way he does.

Or we do what Zacchaeus did and we repay those from whom we stole money. We do stuff, if we say we have trusted in Jesus Christ and have been given eternal life.

We do good works. There is so much we have to do. There is baptism; be baptized said Peter at Pentecost to his congregation. Church attendance, hearing the Bible preached Sunday by Sunday, doing our daily work with all our might, whatever our hands find to do we do it honourably. Whether we eat or drink we do all to the glory of God; we become the best fathers and mothers we can be; we show hospitality, we are ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us why we have hope; we overcome evil with good; we have a generous spirit and we give to the spread of the kingdom of God, and so on and so on.

There are hundreds of things we have to do as people who have inherited eternal life. We are going to inherit eternal death if we live for ourselves. So I am saying that the Bible asks two questions and gives two answers.

By joining yourself by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour by his life and death; entrust yourself to him. Question two. You will see that the Son of God proceeds to take the initiative, and then Jehovah Jesus speaks about the Bible. He could have given one of those brilliant sayings of his that once heard can never be forgotten, but Jesus chose not to do that here.

He is being asked the most important question anyone can ask and he answers it this way, by referring to the Scriptures. He is being the great example to us all when we are asked big questions. We tell people what the Bible says.

All we need to know about God and his salvation, and what duties God requires from us is found in Scripture. Who am I? Why am I in this world? What is my chief end in life? How can I know God? What is he like? What lies after death?

How can I be saved? What must I do to inherit eternal life? Left to myself I would have no idea how to answer a single one of those questions. The wisest man in the world, today or ever, cannot supply the answers — merely in and of himself. He could ask every other man he meets; he could ransack the books of the wisest of men, he could write out those questions on Google but no reply will come to him as to who God is and how he can be saved and what lies after death apart from what is written in the Bible.

Only he who came from heaven, God the Son, the virgin born Jesus of Nazareth who preached the Sermon on the Mount, who lived a blameless life, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate but who rose from the dead, he alone can provide the answers such questions. How does Christ answer one such question?

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and it is profitable for us to read it when we are thinking of the great questions in life. Do you know what the Lord has said in Scripture about how to have eternal life? It is there in the word of God. He was literate like you; he read many books. Had he bothered to read the Scripture? Can you be an educated man, can you be an expert, and not read the word of God? This man knew so much; did he know the answer to his own question?

Surely he did know, and that is why Jesus took the initiative from him and tested him with the same question. How do you read it? Do you read it? No point in having it in your house or carrying it about in your pocket like some good luck charm.

That will bring you no luck at all. God will know that you carried about a Bible and yet you never poured over it, reading it, crying to God to help you understand it. There is a pastor named Trevor Ramsey and when he was a boy he was given a Gideon Bible and though he ignored it for a while a number of things happened to make him start to read a portion of the Bible each day.

On Sunday he would watch people going along to church — boys his own age — and he would envy them. Then he heard members of his family say that his own cousin had become religious.

Trevor looked him up to talk to him and the boy invited him to go to church with him. After a few weeks he began to understand the gospel. Here in front of me were the claims of Jesus Christ that he was all three! How do you read the Scripture? There is another man whose name is Tony Moxon who, when he was 13 years of age, and attending Kingsheath Technical College he was present one day when the school was visited by the Gideons. He was quite thrilled to be given a Bible. He treasured it and started to read ten verses every day though he had no idea what he was reading about.

At the age of 19 he emigrated to Australia and was still reading ten verses a day while living in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. He was not a Christian. It was accompanied by the strongest desire to go to church. He was led to a church where the gospel was preached and after the service the minister came up to him. He had been reading the Bible for seven years without understanding it, but he kept reading it until he knew its message.

What good were all those years of reading Scripture without enlightenment? Much good! I will tell you about a woman who complained that it was a waste of time to do this. It all runs out. And then he was to follow Jesus. Wait a minute! The man has spent his whole life trying to secure his life. Giving away all he had would make him… homeless. Without anything to lean on. And he would die. He would just die. Jesus saw something different, of course. Jesus looked upon him, and loved him, and saw that which was killing him from the inside out.

What is it we fear the most? What kills us, from the inside out? The person we love who has died will disappear from our hearts. And so we cling to hell, in fear of heaven. Like monkeys with our fists in the jar, and the hunters approaching. Jesus looks at us, and loves us deeply. And He looks straight into our heart and sees the thing which we fear the most, which we cling to the most.