And we dare not forget to say that this life He has promised us in heaven exempts us who have put our trust in Him from the specter of Hell, most specifically defined as eternity spent away from the presence of the God who created us, loves us and yearns for us to be in relationship with Him, both in this life and the next.

Question 8: How do I achieve this peace with God?

Simply stated, open your heart to Jesus Christ. The Bible says that He stands at the door of your life, knocking. Admit your need of the Savior. Acknowledge your sin, those things you have done that you shouldn't have done, and those things you have left undone that you should have done. You know what they are. Then acknowledge that which you don't understand about life, about God, about yourself, about other people. It is humbling to claim His direction and meaning, living your life with the help of the Holy Spirit, according to His Word in the Bible.

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A few warnings. First, don't just take what you like about the Bible and reject the rest. Remember, this is the whole counsel of God. If you live by it, acknowledging just some of what is in it, you will never understand that you are not God and I am not God.

Second, let God be God. It is the Christian faith, not the Christian proof. You will never understand it all here on earth.

Third, don't put off the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ right now. You do not know whether or not you will ever have this opportunity again.

Every Easter I preach my heart out and call people to faith in Jesus Christ. Some do receive Christ, and their lives are changed. Others simply smile and say "hello" at the door. In verbal and non-verbal ways, they say, "Great service. See you Christmas Eve," somehow oblivious to the fact that the celebration of Christ's death and resurrection has an existential reality for 365 days a year and for all 24 hours of each of those days. It is a life in which you and I walk in daily relationship with Him.

Perhaps the best way to end this message is to remind ourselves of the poignant story of Ashley Smith. Armed with only the Bible and her copy of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, she handled the seven-hour encounter with Brian Nichols, who was wanted for raping one woman and murdering another woman and three men. The resurrection answers to our deepest questions are embodied in God's grace, His unmerited favor. The best contemporary expression I have read of the essence of what I am trying to say are in these words written by Andrew Sullivan, a man facing his own issues, in his Time, March 28, 2005 essay, titled "When Grace Arrives Unannounced:

We latch onto this story not just because it's a riveting end to a high-stakes manhunt. We find ourselves transfixed and uplifted by the sordid ordinariness of it all. He was an alleged rapist and murderer. She was tied up in a bathtub, clinging to the wreckage of a life that was barely afloat. One was a monster, the other a woman unable to care for her 5-year-old, looking for cigarettes in the dark. And out of that came something, well, beautiful. He saw his purpose: to serve God in prison, to turn his life around, even as it may have been saturated in the blood and pain of others. She saw hers: to make that happen. These people weren't saints. Grace arrives, unannounced, in lives that least expect or deserve it.