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Summary

Katy Franson explores the profound topics of death, salvation, and the importance of personal responsibility in faith. She emphasizes that reaching heaven requires intentional choices, understanding God’s gift of salvation, and living a faithful life rooted in Jesus.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Community Engagement
00:08 Understanding Death and the Afterlife
09:07 The Gift of Heaven vs. Earning It
24:07 Self-Reflection and Spiritual Growth
26:50 The Prodigal Son’s Journey: Lessons in Planning and Survival
29:15 Hitting Rock Bottom: The Path to Acknowledgment and Repentance
31:33 Compassion and Forgiveness: The Father’s Embrace
33:16 Real-Life Stories: The Impact of Choices on Faith
37:40 The Weight of Choices: Personal Responsibility in Faith
44:09 Enduring Hardships: The Christian Journey of Faithfulness
46:04 Encouragement and Accountability: Building Each Other Up

Transcript *This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.*

Katy Franson (00:00)
It’s an honor and a privilege to be back here with you all. And I got greeted by those Florida winds and it took my voice. So if you can’t hear me in the back, just wave and I’ll try to turn up the volume.

If it is my fault, if I miss heaven.

I can’t blame myself for those that I’ve taught with love and grace. I can’t blame myself for those that I had patience with and love, yet they chose not to obey God.

I can’t blame myself if someone I love and cares about chooses to live unfaithfully or if they choose to never choose God.

Have you considered that in order to reach heaven we have to die first?

You know, if the time all of time ends before we die, then no, you don’t have to go through that process. most of us will. And that’s something we need to become comfortable with.

It’s not just a conversation about death, but dealing with the process of death.

We need to not talk about it as this is a bad thing because it’s just part of life. God made it a part of life.

And we can’t reach the next life unless we go through that.

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Death is the beginning of a new life. I hope it is the life that we are all looking forward to. It will be a new way of living.

The physical death isn’t to be feared because it’s no longer our enemy. We have hope and confidence in what God has told us. And the physical death is merely the threshold we pass through to get through some to something better.

and everyone will stand before Jesus. I hope you look forward to that. If you’re nervous about standing before our Savior,

Take the time to consider why. Take the time to study so that you can move past the fear and know that someone who loves you is waiting for you.

1 Corinthians 13 5 helps us in this examination if we are having difficulty. Examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourself. Do you not know that Jesus is in you unless indeed you are disqualified? And 1 Thessalonians 5 21.

It’s probably one of my favorite verses. I can’t just pick one. Test all things, hold fast to that which is true. Or what is good, depending on your version.

All things includes me. It includes my motivations. It includes my actions and my private thoughts.

Being a Christian is a choice. A lot of times we treat it as if it’s just something you do when you grow up in the church. Something that people outside the church should do. But it’s a choice. Recently, I had this great opportunity to spend two weeks with some young Christians that are also aspiring scientists.

And during the break, I had this conversation and one stated that, well, heaven is you got to earn it. You have to earn heaven. And I kept waiting for someone to chime in, someone to say something, and they didn’t. So, you know, being the forever counselor teacher that I am. So well, no, you can’t earn it.

You can’t earn, hey, you can’t earn heaven. It’s not something that I can earn. It’s not something that any of us can earn. It’s a gift. And that he was left with this puzzled look on his face. And that made me wonder like, do we really understand the difference between earning and being given a gift? We have to understand that difference and know.

what they are. So I know a lot of people use the examples of academics. And I think most of us are pretty familiar with that. So I thought I’d use a different example that would make you stretch your brain a little bit and thinking about what the difference between these two things. As Joshi mentioned, I’m a third degree black belt. For my first degree, I had to find out the requirements before I could test.

I had to go to class so many times, a certain specific time. I had to go take practice tests. I had to learn knowledge and be able to recite definitions. I had to break boards and perform proper techniques and forms and sparring.

and I had to do that all on my own. No one else. For my second degree test, I had to do all that again at a higher and higher levels.

and Taekwondo camp also. It is not like Bible camp. We have to get up at midnight and work out. Not fun. Maybe a little. Then, for third degree, I had to do all that again.

and be able to explain techniques without moving. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, I move a lot. I do not hold still. So that is a little bit of a challenge. I also had to participate successfully in two-on-one sparring and break two stacked bricks.

If there was anything my son and I were nervous about because we trained together, test together, it was those bricks because we had never done it before.

But even though I train with my husband and my son and my son and I test together, even though we have other friends that we train with and help each other during class and outside of class to prepare, when it comes to test time, we’re on our own. There’s no one there for us. We can tell each other, yeah, I’ll be rooting for you inside my head. But.

All you can really do is pay attention to what you’re being told to do.

I cannot earn the rank of third degree black belt for any of you. And you can’t earn it for me. My rank is my journey. And it is for me alone.

For every 10,000 people that start martial arts, one will earn a black belt.

There are no average black dots.

I promise I’m not bragging, I have a point.

A gift is only possible because someone else made it so. I have to accept that gift, I have to put it to use, but the initial gift is not possible to be attained without the giver.

So let’s look at some scripture to see how this helps us understand these differences. Let’s look at Joshua 24, 33. I have given you a land for which you did not labor and cities which you did not build and you dwell in them.

You eat of the vineyards and the olive groves which you did not plant.

The Israelites’ land promise was fulfilled and that land that we are gifted, that’s heaven.

It is a gift.

Deuteronomy 9, 4 says, do not think in your heart after the Lord your God has cast them out before you saying, because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me in to possess this land. But it is because of the wickedness of the nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. There’s not anything I could do or can do. It is the Lord.

In John 6, 38 to 40, we see…

For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That of all he has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again, raise it up at the last day and that, and this is the will of him who sent me.

Now everyone who sees the Son and believes him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at that last day. I am not mentioned as a cause in the scriptures. Jesus is the cause. Jesus did what had to be done, making that perfect sacrifice so that we could have that option, that gift of heaven.

and it is an opportunity for everyone.

Second Chronicles 714 states, my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear them from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. Forgiveness and therefore heaven is possible.

Our current land that we dwell in as Christians is the church, but it’s a temporary place for us. Our home is heaven.

Coming a Christian is a choice, just like heaven is a choice, and it’s hard to conceive that anyone would not choose heaven and would be choosing hell, but when I continually, don’t continually choose heaven, I am choosing hell. I can’t accidentally choose heaven. I can’t accidentally not choose God. It is purposeful.

We have to do some self-reflection from time to time. And sometimes we have to ask ourselves, what is between me and…

What have I allowed between me and God? It’s better, but not really the question we need. Who or what have I allowed, have I placed between God?

If we don’t look for any of the roadblocks, any of the little stumbling steps that are between our God and ourselves, we won’t notice the walls we build between ourselves and heaven.

Some never choose God, and yet others do, then walk away. We have examples in the scriptures of these situations. The rich ruler in Luke 18, and the vine that didn’t prove it was fruit in John 15.

Most likely we all know someone that’s walked away from the church, from God. My younger brother did.

His name is Christopher. Please pray for him. He doesn’t know how far away he is.

So walk away and come back. Just like the prodigal son, right?

But some, they just walk out of life in that state.

So let’s look at some of these examples really quickly and we will have to be quick with them. But maybe we’ll find that they have that moment of that figuring it out. If you turn over to Luke 18, we’ll go.

through 18 to 23. We don’t really know how old the Rich Roller was. Headings are added by the editors.

But in verse 18, we have this question. Now, a certain ruler asked him, saying, good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And that’s a good question. And I want to believe it’s sincere question that he wanted to know and that he wanted to understand and make sure that his salvation was secure.

He was also asking the question in front of a crowd. Did he want to pat it on the back? Was he looking for accolades by this man whom he recognized as good teacher? So Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good, but one that is God.

Jesus asked the ruler, do you understand that I am God? Do you see this bigger picture than what is going on in life?

Do you know the commandments? Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not be very false witness, honor your father and mother. And he said, all these things I’ve kept from my youth. Jesus acknowledged that this man did know these things. Listing five of the commandments.

And we read that this ruler is confident because he’s kept them since he was young. Because of that, he was probably brought up in a Jewish home.

So when Jesus heard these things, he said to him, you still lack one thing, sell all that you have and distribute to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come follow me. Sounds perfect, right?

He was confident.

Jesus didn’t correct him or question him, he told him the truth. Focus on the one thing, the one thing you lack.

That’s where my focus needs to be. I have to figure out what that one thing is and stop letting it get in the way.

He immediately knew he wasn’t going to paradise and we know that because he went away sad. Why would he be very sorrowful if he thought everything was good? No problem’s great, check that box.

but he also wasn’t mad.

He didn’t place blame.

I think he understood that it was his fault when he was missing heaven.

We don’t know if anything changed.

Turn over to John chapter 15.

first few verses there.

I am the true vine.

and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that bears fruit, he pruth, and that it may bear more fruit.

Those branches are Christians because they’re connected to the vine.

But there’s two kinds of branches. There’s those that are cut away and those that are pruned. The first produces no fruit.

The second one does, but produces more with pruning. If you are looking at your life and you feel that you are producing fruit, what could you prune away to allow you to produce more?

Coming to everything is great. You’re here, right? You even chose the ladies class.

But sometimes we could do more.

If we’re not looking for how we can help, how will we know how we can help? Sometimes we have to ask people. Teachers always need something cut out, colored, put together, this idea that I don’t know how to make it come together. Maybe you can make it come together.

That second branch bears more fruit, removing the distractions with better focus. We can all produce more fruit.

Verse three, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you as the branches cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me.

in the Greek, to remain, to stay, to continue, to dwell, to endure, wait in Jesus and he will be with you. There is no good works or fruit apart from or without Jesus. A lot of people do a lot of good things and

With the flyers out west, you know that there’s a lot of people helping out. But good works, as God defines in his word, that can only come from his family.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bear much fruit for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered and gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned.

pretty clear. might not like it, but it’s pretty clear. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this much my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will also be my disciples.

If. The verse starts with if.

That puts a condition on me. I have to do something which is to abide in Jesus. Stay with Jesus. Wait on Jesus to gather us home.

Jesus’ word abide in me if I’m not in his word continually.

not dwelling in his word. My fruit glorifies God and heaven is a home worth waiting for.

for.

I will wither and burn.

because it’s my fault if I miss heaven.

In Luke 15, we have the prodigal son.

15 versus 11 to 32.

means to squander or one that is wasteful.

I think we’ve done a better job kind of making sure that we understand this. But I think somewhere along the lines, we got the idea that prodigal means you go away and you come back. It’s not it. So sometimes we do need to look upwards. Something sticks out to you. Don’t be afraid to look up. There’s a lot of apps that you can look up the Greek in painless ways.

If you need some help finding those, let me know afterwards and I’ll help you with some good free downloads. And it will help you move forward in your studies. So let’s take a look here at verse 11. Then a certain man, then he said, a certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me a good.

portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided them to his livelihood. Some people I’ve heard this time, they’re like, he’s being so rude. He’s asking for his inheritance and dad’s still alive. But that was actually their tradition. That was what they did. When the man felt he was ready to take over that part of the business, the family, he would request it.

there’s something for us to learn in just that. When you’re ready, you have to ask for the responsibility. That means I have to look for how I can help, what I can do. Not just sit back and have others come to me and say, hey, sign up on this sign up sheet to do this. I have to ask.

And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

He didn’t do what he was supposed to do. It was evident. They could see it because he left. But there was a famine in that land. And he began in want.

Tell you to plan for the future. Make sure you have something put away so when child come up you have your safety net. He did not have a just in case fund.

Then he went and joined himself to a citizen in that country and sent himself into the field to feed swine.

He got a job. I don’t think that feeding pigs would have been his first choice, but basic survival takes over and there’s need.

that to join popped out at me. So I went to Thayer’s Lexicon and it’s defined as to join as to attach oneself to a master or patron. So it is that work relationship joining to.

verse 16, he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that swines ate, and no one gave him anything. It must have been pretty bad off to think that looked good, that that could feed me and it sustained me.

And I think a lot of times, especially when we’re teaching the young kids, we talk about this and we read this part and we’re, that’s so gross. But is that the attitude I should have? Or should I pity him? Should I?

feel bad for his situation.

The good news is in verse 17, he does realize how low he was. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father’s hired servants have bred enough to spare and perish with hunger? And I perish with hunger. He knew that he could have a better situation, a better working situation.

under his father. He wasn’t going to be asking for treatment of a son, but just the treatment of a worker he understood was a place than he was currently in.

It’s unfortunate that some have to hit rock bottom before they can bounce back. We pray that they bounce back. We hope that they can come back. But just like the prodigal son, they have to acknowledge where they have been and what they have done in order to come back and to grow.

acknowledge not just their leaving but the way in which they lived. He has this new plan in verse 18 and repentance is a hard road but very much worth it.

He did the work. He did not go and do what he did last time, going off without thinking it through or without a backup plan, without…

thinking that someone else might have better advice. Someone else might know something that I don’t that I should learn.

verse 19 we see that he just sincerely wanted to serve his father even without the blessing of serving as a son.

Do we want to serve our father?

with as much desperation as he did here.

He carried out his plan in verse 20, and a plan does not help unless it’s executed, right? Make all the plans, but it doesn’t matter unless you do it. So he did it.

headed back, but he had all the words in his head. He knew what he was going to do and can almost feel like prepping, going through those words again and again.

that he was met with compassion. Do we wait for our brothers and sisters to come to us? And tell us how sorry they are, or do we meet them with compassion?

Do I want God to meet me with compassion?

Though we don’t know when our life on earth will be ending, we do know that repentance needs to come before that last breath of life. And at a time that mental cognizance allows for it. The product will then chose the hard work and chose heaven. He was given the time to make that change. And there’s two people that I want to share with you. The first is Miss Jean.

Ms. Jean and her husband came into our life through finding us online. he wanted to study, Mr. Jack wanted to study with my husband, and he wanted his wife to come. So my husband said, that would be great. I will bring my wife too.

The only problem was Miss Jean didn’t want to be there.

She forgot that she was with us in a study.

Miss Jean had Alzheimer’s and was blind when I met her.

She couldn’t tell us what we just read. She couldn’t explain anything.

After studying a few times, Mr. Jack was ready to be baptized. He wanted her to be baptized too. Miss Jean did not want to be baptized. She told me that she was baptized in the Jordan River on their trip over to the Bible lands.

And that.

No other baptism could mean more than being baptized in the Bible.

Though Mr. Jack understood and she had the right not to be baptized, it was very sad. He was. Because of her mental state, we couldn’t reason with her and teach her anything. She had lost that capacity and that limited her time to choose God and to choose heaven.

December 24th or 25th excuse me.

The other person I’d like to share with you is my friend and our brother Jay. He allowed alcohol to get between him and God.

about five years ago, one of his three girls that he raised on his own was murdered. Alcohol became a bigger problem.

He had to make the choice to do the work, though we were all praying for him.

on his third ambulance ride to the hospital, didn’t know that he would survive at this time. The medical team was pretty certain that he would not survive, and he ended up having a high-risk surgery that they did not know if he would even recover from. The surgeon was actually surprised that he made it through.

A weeks later, he was released to his parents’ home. He was doing better. Due to infection, he had to go back to the hospital and when they admitted him, they said he had to have a liver transplant. That was his only option for survival.

He was praying every day.

He has to make it until March before he can have the transplant.

They don’t know if he’s going to be able to sustain that long or not.

So we pray, his family prays. Some of the doctors have even prayed with us.

and he’s doing the work for his girls and for his soul. Please keep Jay in your prayers in his journey.

the choices that we make, the choices we have made, and the choices that we will make.

They will stand between each of us and God, or they will bind us closer to him.

It will be my fault if I miss heaven and no one else’s.

Turn with me in Matthew 7.

24 to 27, pretty sure we all know this parable well, and we probably know at least one song, right? We’re not singing today, my voice is just trash. But you all sound amazing.

Verse 24 says, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken to a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

Peers and doers build a strong foundation.

That foundation is in Christ. We have to bear fruit and remove anyone and anything that comes between me and God.

and the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall for it was founded on the…

Storms come, but God’s greater than any storm.

These are the those that hear and do. So. There’s some others though, verse 26, but those that hear these sayings of mine and does not do them will be likened to foolish man. Who built his house on the sand and the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell and it was.

great fall.

The foundation was weak. Couldn’t hold anything up. Storms come in life and everything the foolish man built crumbled. It was a great fall.

hearers but not doers. No fruit creates barriers, keeps obstacles between self and God.

Both men heard God’s word.

Did you notice that?

They had the same storm that came upon their homes. But only one stood.

One storm, two homes, but only one left standing.

Only the one chose the needed foundation to work upon.

Those that continued in Judaism, those that in denominations, those in cults will not have anyone to blame but themselves.

It will be their fault that they did not reach heaven.

What about the hearers that are not doers in the pews next to us, It’s really easy to say all those people outside, it’s going to be their fault. But what about the brother and the sister sitting next to me in the pew that are not working, that are not trying and striving for their home?

be nobody’s fault but mine.

It seems natural to want to blame someone or something, even ourselves.

My choices are mine to live with. And so are yours.

Because of time, I would love you to just write down a note to yourself to Isaiah 59. Read through that.

because when you get to verse 11 and you can’t say, yes, I moan sadly.

that you would rather look for justice.

salvation is far from us until we do deal with it the way God wants us to deal with it.

We all have a sin problem. It’s how are we going to solve it? We’re gonna pass that blame onto another person, blame myself for another person’s sin. Will I take responsibility for my own sin and teach others to do the same? We have to make those choices. They’re not easy choices, but they’re the right choices that need to be made. And hopefully made in Godly ways, right?

So after we become Christian, we have to live faithfully. And we talk about that a

Life is rarely easy. We have to do it in a way that’s pleasing to God. So we have to figure out how.

2 Timothy 2, 3 instructs us to, therefore you must endure hardships as a good soldier of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have to endure. If you drop down to 15, we see to be diligent or constant, to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Diligent.

Endure.

Colossians 2, 6, and 7 state, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Walk, Rooted, Build Up, Abound, Thanksgiving.

doing these things. I don’t believe there’s going to be any bad attitudes in heaven. think that we’re all going to be doing these things joyfully, right?

there most certainly will not be average Christians in heaven.

It is my fault if my miss heaven. Ladies, let us encourage each other. Take the time to.

in courage.

Kindly give constructive criticism, willingly to receive it.

and pray for each other.

pray for each other so that we do not miss heaven.