Imagine that Jesus appears to you in your sleep and begins to speak.

He says “I’m concerned that most people have come to believe that they’re going to heaven. And they believe not only are they going to heaven, but pretty well everyone else is as well. And since everyone is going anyway, it leaves them all free to do as they please. And even those who claim to follow me can pick and choose as they please with no worries. Why aim for perfection or holiness or even heaven? Why read the bible, or even go to church, why bother to know and love me? Why believe there is only one truth when everyone can have their own, individual, personalized truth?

But if it’s true everyone is going to heaven, then what’s the purpose of life?

I don’t know how so many people got this heaven idea. I know that Matthew told you about the two gates. You know the wide one that leads to destruction and the narrow one that leads to life. And how many take the wide one but how few take the narrow one. And I know Matthew also told you that not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven. That I will tell many that I never knew you and to depart from me. I know Paul told you in his first letter to the Corinthians that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God and again in Galatians about the works of the flesh and that those who do these things will not inherit my kingdom as well. And if you look, you can find more that don’t lend a lot of credence to the idea of everyone going to heaven.

So what is the purpose of life?

It’s really simple.

The purpose of life is to choose.

The purpose of life is to give you the opportunity to choose heaven. It’s to give you the chance to decide for yourself between heaven and the world. And since I am heaven and you are the world, the purpose of life is really to choose between me and you. Who do you want to follow—who do you want to trust for your eternity?

More and more people seem to be choosing the world. They have no room for me in their hearts and no one is telling them about me. I’m not allowed outside of the church much anymore, I offend too many people. And what need is there to evangelize them since you believe most are going to heaven anyway. I have given them the freedom to choose their eternity and they have chosen for me to stay away. And this place you call purgatory. This place that will surely save everyone. This place that so many people seem to use as a crutch, thinking they won’t be required to choose, because purgatory will take care of everything. It does exist as a final purification for some who are not quite ready for heaven. But it exists only for those who in this life have made a choice. It exists only for those who have chosen me.

Which brings me back to you.

You may not realize it, but you know quite a few people who are not going to heaven unless something happens between now and when I meet them face to face. You have neighbors, friends, church members and even family members who have yet to make a choice. Most of us are like the rich young man that both Mark and Matthew told you about. The rich young man wanted heaven—he had tasted it, but he couldn’t leave the world behind. It wasn’t just about what his riches could buy. His riches also provided him an image, a social status, pride and certainly comfort and security. And here I was asking him to throw all that away for the narrow gate—for heaven—for me. He couldn’t see that I was worth it.

Aren’t many of you the same as the rich young man?

The rich young man wanted both worlds. He was stretching for heaven while grasping to hang on to this one. You can try all you want, but you can’t have both, you can only have one. You have to quit making excuses, you have to make a choice. And not making a choice is in itself a choice—and not a good one.

All you have to do is choose and I’ll do the rest. It’s only when you make a choice—it’s only when you choose me that I can really begin to transform you—when I can really begin to make you perfect—when I can really begin to make you Holy—when you can really begin to receive fullness of life as the Holy Spirit begins to rush through you and back out into the world. It’s only when you choose me that you can begin to experience and understand what heaven is truly about.

And then Jesus turned away and I could tell he was leaving when he stopped and slowly turned around and looked at me and said “We will be seeing each other again, sooner than you expect. I hope that before then, you will have chosen. And I really hope that you choose me.”