I recently had total knee replacement. I had prepared work related things to stay ahead as best I could. My family was behind me and there for me to have the surgery. It went great and pain has been very minimal. However, in my recuperation I have come to realize there are some things that I simply cannot do by myself. Simple things like putting on socks, picking up things, getting dressed. I have had to have someone (my wife mainly) to do things for me. I am so blessed to have a great spouse and family to help me in this time.

Thinking about needing help to do things I cannot do I began to think about spiritual things. I want to go to heaven, so I have always tried to live for God most of my life. I know there is a heaven and a hell. I know how great heaven will be and how terrible hell will be.

Oh yes, I sin and have many times and by myself there is nothing I could do to get to heaven. Fortunately, I do not have to. I do have something I must do (just as in recovering from my surgery I have things I must do) but I do not have to do everything.

God gave His Son so that all men could have salvation. That gift given by God is the key to salvation. John recorded, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God knew man was not perfect even though he made man perfect.

God created man as a free moral agent so that man would be able to make decisions on his own. Adam and Eve made a choice in the Garden of Eden that brought sin and death into the world. God could have destroyed man but instead provided a way for man to have a way back to Him – Christ.

God did not pass Adam’s sin on to the next generation, He allowed each generation to make their own choices.

Notice this passage, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20).

Each generation must make their own decisions, but God would have all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:4).

As sorry as one may be for their sin and no matter how good a person tries to live, it takes Christ blood to remove the sins of man. Paul wrote, “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Rom. 3:23, 24). Paul continued to write how that man must be baptized into Christ for salvation. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom.

6:3 – 11). Man cannot get to heaven by himself He must have Christ.