Eternal Life Formula!

For Friday, October 16, 2026:

John 17:3 NLT, Jesus speaking: “This is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.”

The question isn’t if you’ll see life after this life. You will! What you want to pin down is where you’ll be spending your time.

Those with Jesus will find a place already prepared for them in God’s Kingdom. It will be heavenly! On the other hand, Satan and his demons will be bobbing in the lake of fire, hopefully going down for the third time! This life is our chance to make sure our names are written in the book of life. We don’t get a do-over, so choose wisely. Everyone must choose.

Even 2K years ago, people wanted to know about the life after this life. Jesus responded with this straight-forward answer: “Know the Father, and know me.” Access to an eternal residence is grace, God’s gift to us. We are saved by faith in that one God and the Son he sent to earth, Jesus! Jesus will welcome believers with open arms!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Redeemed!

For Thursday, October 15, 2026:

Romans 10:9 NLT: “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Since Paul isn’t omnipresent (like God,) he needed to send written messages to teach theology to the churches. These letters or epistles are as valued today as they were 2K years ago. If there had been Billboard charts back then, Paul’s letter to the Romans would be in the top 10!

Sidebar, my 2¢: A lot of people expect religion and salvation to be overly complicated. Man-made rules and ritual traditions add to deliverance’s confusion. In many people’s minds, the difficulty of obtaining redemption seems to add to its perceived value. But that’s not the way God wanted it to be.

Re-read today’s scripture. If you claim Jesus as the resurrected Lord of your life, you WILL be saved. Not you ‘might’ be saved, but you ‘will’ be saved for sure. Yes, friends, it’s that simple. Don’t over-complicate it!

I frequently mention Assurance of Salvation. Paul clearly states that principle in this scripture. You don’t have to belong to a church, be baptized or receive communion to get into heaven. Those are all good things to do, but your salvation isn’t hanging on anything that you can do other than loving the Lord. You will be redeemed because of your love for Jesus! That’s what the Bible says!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Baptized!

For Wednesday, October 14, 2026:

Mark 1:9 NLT: “One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John (the Baptist) baptized him in the Jordan River.”

God’s preference is for everyone to repent and return. Backsliding isn’t something we invented in the 21st Century. If you drew a graph of the Jewish people’s relationship with God, it would look like a roller coaster – up and down, closer to God, farther from God, back and forth. As people renewed their commitment to the Lord, baptism was an outward sign of their inward change. The old, defective person would go under the water and emerge figuratively cleaned, leaving sin behind. Renewed!

Most theologians agree that Jesus, being without sin, didn’t really need to be baptized. But it was a teachable moment. He was modeling repent and return for the rest of us.

Notable in this scenario are the two things that followed. First, the Holy Spirit broke open heaven and descended upon Jesus like a dove. And after that, a voice boomed from heaven, saying, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” That’s a proud Father bragging about his #1 Son! Wouldn’t you have loved to hear that voice?

Believers are adopted into that same Holy Family. Jesus told us to pray to “Our Father.” So we’re all sisters and brothers following the #1 Son. Maybe God has your picture on his refrigerator!

Pastor Norton Lawellin
The Father’s House
Jesus In the City Fellowship
Truth & Freedom Church