I ask questions. That’s just who I am.
What is the purpose of the church? What does it mean to be filled by the Holy Spirit? How do I know for sure I’m following God’s will for my life? And so on.
Once upon a time, I thought Christian leaders would have the answers to my questions. So I cornered them when I could. I wrote to them. I begged them to give me the answers I was seeking.
One evening—I was in my 20s—after a concert, I was sharing a meal with a Christian musician—a celebrity in his day. He said to me, “You have a pick in my brain, and I just want to get it out.”
When I wrote to Christian leaders, most of them wrote back a polite version of this: “Go bother someone else.”
I finally learned to stop pestering them. It was a waste of time. They didn’t have the answers, and they didn’t appreciate me asking.
But I didn’t stop asking questions. When something didn’t sit right with me, I pondered it—sometimes for decades—until it finally made sense.
I learned in this process that there are some questions that only God can answer. For example: How can a loving God allow hell to exist? I can’t answer that for you. But God can. He’s answered it for me, but it took 18 months of sleepless nights and many prayers to get that answer.
Then there are some questions that demand answers, questions that force us to read, reread, and reread the Bible until it finally makes sense.
For example:
If heaven is free gift, then why does Jesus tell us that we might need to cut off our hands or gouge out our eyes to stay out of hell?
Why did Jesus let the rich young ruler walk away and miss eternal life? Why did He insist that he sell all his possessions and give all the money to the poor?
What does Jesus mean when He says if you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven?
If we’re saved by grace, why does the Bible say that the dead are judged by their works?
These are really important questions. We don’t want to come to the end of our lives and find out we missed heaven because we didn’t get to the bottom of these questions and find the right answers.
I’ve been puzzling over questions like these for a long, long time, and in recent years answers that make sense to me have come into focus.
I want to share those answers with you, and with anyone who will listen.
That’s why I wrote Am I going to heaven when I die? I want people to have answers to these questions and others like them.
You can buy it on Amazon. You can read it online for free. You can buy 100 copies and give them away. I think this is a really important book. I want you to read it.
Am I going to heaven when I die? It’s life’s most important question. And I want you to have a complete answer.
Dwight
