Life-Changing Questions

What if This Were Your Last Day? (Third chapter from end of book.)

What if This Were Your Last Day?
(Excerpt from book, Life Changing Questions by Jimmy Surgener

Many of you have just received word from your doctor of his diagnosis of a fatal disease, a terminal illness. Many of you are on death row, whether in or out of prison. For whoever you are, in no time flat, even should you live many years longer, before you know it, your final day, all unforeseen, will be upon you!
If this were your last day, with sunlight dying in the west, with shadows of everlasting night lengthening and deepening, your last dream gone, your last hope fading, with God’s judgment staring you in the face, what would be, or what is, your reaction?

Only One of Two Reactions Are Possible:
That of One or the Other of the Two Criminals
Who Died Along with Jesus
For the two thieving murderers dying upon the right and left hands of innocent Jesus, His day of death for the sin of all humanity -- was also theirs, each for his own guilt.
For seconds for each, his final chance loomed before his grasp. The only way out was hanging on a center cross, His life blood also ebbing. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” both had heard Him declare, either directly or indirectly.
This could very well prove to be your last day of opportunity!

If This Were Your Last Day –
Whom Would You be Blaming
For What has Gone Wrong in Your Life?

Whom would you blame for what has come upon you from without? On whom would you be sitting in judgment for all the wrongs other people have dealt you? Would you still be blaming your spouse, your parents, your siblings, your children, your neighbors? Or would you still be blaming God for all your natural calamities and personal ailments?
Who are you holding responsible for all your catastrophes? For all your misdeeds? What, or who, are you blaming for what has brought about all your turmoil within? Your environment? Your inheritance? Whom are you judging, instead of yourself? Other people? God?
Or yourself, alone? Would you be registering honesty, or dishonesty? Would you be coming clean? Or still covering up?
Would your attitude be that of the criminal on Jesus’ right, or on His left? Like the one, would you be crying out to God for mercy in your desperation? Or like the other, still mocking and ridiculing your one and only Savior?
Would you confess yourself at fault? Would you trust the Savior to save you? Like the penitent criminal, would you implore Jesus, “Lord, when you enter your kingdom, remember me, an unworthy sinner!”
These conflicting responses are the only two possible ways you can approach God.
Which response is yours?

If This Were Your Last Day –
Would You be Washed in Jesus’ Blood?

Are you cleansed and justified from all your bad behavior? Or still guilty, as charged? Ecclesiastes 7:20, NIV, affirms, “For there is not a just man on earth, who does good and does not sin.”
You can’t heist yourself without Jesus’ support, as every religious assumption of man claims; but which God’s Word denies. I’m asking you, Have you ever been washed from your sin and guilt in the blood Jesus shed on the cross? In what, or in whom are you trusting for the salvation of your never-dying soul?
If this were your last day on earth, how would you react? Would your reaction be that of the untruthful thief, still lying to yourself and before God? Still balancing a chip on your shoulder toward your Maker?

If This Were Your Last Day –
Would You Claim
Jesus’ Offer of Forgiveness,
Or Still Forfeit it?

At his last hour, the honest man, woman, or youth wakes up. He comes to his senses and acknowledges the truth of things. But the headstrong, self-willed, dishonest character is like the aging lady who was told by her doctors that she had only hours to live. When I asked if she was ready to receive Jesus, she bellowed, “I ain’t ready yet!”
Or would you be like the eleven year old girl who insulted God before Evangelist J. Harold Smith: She said, “If I knew I would go to hell this very day, I would not go to the altar.” That very day she did die in a head-on car accident. In hand-wringing agony, she cried out, “It’s too late, Mama; I’m going to hell, Mama!”
A beer addict stopped racing his car at a beer joint to demand of the attendant a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon Champagne Velvet Beer. When told that he was out of that particular brand, he exclaimed, “I mean to have me a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon Champagne Velvet Beer, even if I have to go to hell to get it!” On down the highway, minutes later, he had a head-on collision with a beer truck. When passers-by found his body, there was a sliver through his heart. It read, “Pabst Blue Ribbon Champagne Velvet Beer.” He found his favorite beer, but, never for all eternity, will he have a chance to sip a taste of it!

If This Were Your Last Day—
Which Everlasting Destination
Would You Leave Yourself?

To the penitent criminal on His right, who cried out for mercy in upfront acknowledgment of his guilt and trust in Jesus, and in Jesus alone, Jesus announced his forthcoming destiny, “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise.” “Paradise” means, the garden of heaven.
Yet, the other criminal kept refusing to come clean and blame himself, instead of Jesus, for his life of shame. To the bitter end, he kept insulting the Savior Lord and prejudging Him, as though the liar instead of himself. In his attempt to cover up his fraud, theft, and murder, he kept branding Jesus as an impostor. The moment his legs were broken, he lifted up his eyes in hell, being in inescapable torment! Forever, he had forfeited his last chance!
For all perpetuity the honest felon, though just as guilty as the other, has had his request divinely granted. For all perpetuity the dishonest felon has had his belated request divinely denied. His perpetual pleading is all too late! The candid crook has inherited all things. The cagey one, has lost it all, including himself, though having had the same opportunity!
What about you? Are you being straightforward, or underhanded?