Believing in life after death makes a difference to your life. It changes your perspective on life now, gives you an incentive to live a certain way, and gives you hope. There are many different ideas on what happens after death, but Christians believe in two final destinations for people: heaven and hell.
The Bible tells us heaven is worth more than anything in this life (Matt 13:44-46
). It is so much better it is worth making sacrifices now in order to get there. So how might we get to heaven then? It has nothing to do with how good you are, surprisingly enough. It is all to do with how you respond to Jesus and his death (see Phil 3:18-20). Those who trust in Jesus for being right with God are the ones who will live with God forever. On the other hand, those who do not trust Jesus will find themselves eternally apart from God in hell.
Why might this matter for us? Well, if you are unsure about Jesus, we see it actually matters if you trust in him or not. And if you do trust in Jesus, we will still be judged based on how we have served Jesus in this life. On the bad days, it is always worth remembering that life will not always be like this. If you follow Jesus you have a bright future forever, and real certain hope of being with God.
(Based on Bible Cafe teaching, Friday March 12 2010).