Judgment Day Came Early

I met with a nice lady well-versed in the Bible this morning. Toward the end of our conversation, she asked me this question:

“If you were to die today, what would you say to Jesus to get into Heaven?”

(Pause now and ask yourself the same question above and see what your answer is.)

I thought for a moment and thoughtfully said, “I love you Jesus and I’ve tried to love others as you love them.” (Those were the greatest two commandments, so I thought I hadn’t gone too wrong. Plus, that was honestly in my heart.) Then my friend asked me if I had anything else to say to Jesus and I started to ramble on about how I’d tried to repent of anything I’d done wrong.

When I was done, my friend said “I don’t know if you’ve been saved.” “You sound like a works salvation or perhaps you’re still influenced by LDS teachings on works” she replied. I told her “It’s the LDS teachings.” The LDS scripture “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23) came to mind.

My friend was kind enough to share more than a dozen scripture references with me on the way to be saved as Jesus taught. These are my favorite two scriptures that she shared:

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
“For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)

The other one was:

“For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that nor of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

To me these scriptures plus the witness of Christian friends, meant that I am completely dependent on Jesus for salvation. There is nothing I can do to prove myself or make myself worthy of Jesus’ gift to us. And it is precisely that: a gift.

Compared to all the commandments we have to keep in the LDS church, something as simple as confessing Jesus with my mouth seemed almost too good to be true. But that’s what Jesus taught so that’s good enough for me.

At the end of our conversation, I asked for another try at answering her probing question. My response this time was “I accept you as my Savior and I’m a sinner and totally dependent on you.” My friend smiled and seemed satisfied.

I felt I had a taste of judgment day and I wasn’t prepared. I hope to be more prepared for the real thing. But we never know when that day will be.  Open Jesus' gift of salvation now.