This morning my sweetheart said, “You act so different when you have hope.” With just those few words she said so much. And as usual, she was so right.

When I’m excited about what’s happening — or going to happen — I am upbeat and happy. Like when we’re leaving for vacation and I’m full of anticipation and joy. But when our vacation is coming to an end, I don’t always hide my disappointment. (Don’t believe her if she tells you I pouted like a spoiled brat years ago on the final day of our Caribbean cruise. I was just having a particularly bad day – dispite the fact that everything had been just like the weather for seven days straight – perfect!)

I should be happy all the time. I am an amazingly blessed man in this life here on earth.  And knowing that I will someday spend eternity with Him, I should be filled with hope and joy every minute of every day. But how quickly I forget … and whine. (My wife actually has a sign in our kitchen that says ‘Thou Shalt Not Whine.’)

How sad. And scary.
If we are happy, joyful and excited only when things are going well, how are we any different than those who don’t believe in Jesus? We aren’t. And that’s the point Paul was making with the “elementary truths” in Hebrews 6. We can’t move on to maturity until the basics are automatically part of our everyday lives.

What we do with the first five “elementary truths” that I’ve written about for the past few days will determine what happens with the sixth “elementary truth” — eternal judgment.

On the one hand this should be terrific news. We get to determine how and where we spend eternity — blessed beyond our wildest dreams, based on how we love and obey Him (What no eye has seen … God has prepared for those who love Him. – I Cor. 2:9), or cursed (God ‘Will render to each person according to his deeds:’ to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. – Rom. 2:6-8).

On the other hand, knowing we will all face eternal judgment can be terrifying news if we know that we didn’t make the right decision regarding the basics of our Christian faith. We don’t want to face God at judgment if we did not: 1) Repent (turn from our sins to Him) and love Him with all our hearts and minds; 2) walk with Him daily in faith; 3) get baptized in water to demonstrate our faith and get immersed in His Spirit; 4) receive and use the power that is available to us through the laying on of hands; or 5) understand and share the fact that Jesus was resurrected from the dead — and we will be, too.

Are You Ready?
If you haven’t chosen to join the ranks of Christianity and gone through boot camp — the basics of the Christian faith — do it now. It’s not too late. Tell Him you want to know Him better. Turn from your selfishness — 180 degrees — and obey Him. Ask Him to empower you to be different, and believe that He will do it. Find a group of strong believers who can help you grow in your faith. If you do, you’ll face Him with confidence on the day of eternal judgment. And here on earth you’ll have hope. And you’ll act differently.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we are like Christ here in this world.  – I John 4:11-17

Here are some more scripture verses on eternal judgment…

Jesus is Judge
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.  – John 5:21-29

We Are Not
Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “Will render to each person according to his deeds:” to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.  – Romans 2:1-16

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this — not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.  – Romans 14:10-13

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.  – I Corinthians 4:5

Each Of Us Will Face Him
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.  – II Corinthians 5:10

The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after. Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed.  – I Timothy 5:24-25

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.  – Hebrews 9:27-28

Not Everyone Will Reach Heaven
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and “The fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.”   – Hebrews 10:26-27

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter….  – II Peter 2:2-6

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.  – Jude 4:-7

Final Judgment
Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.  – II Peter 3:3-7

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth — men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. – I Timothy 2:1-9

Paul’s Charge to Timothy — And Us
You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings — what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  – I Timothy 3:10-17