This Christian salvation stuff is really something! Those Zen people think they know all about paradoxes, but let me tell you: heaven has them beat by a mile when it comes to paradoxes!

I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior right before I got the lethal injection that killed my physical body of sin that had committed so many sins. As the liquid valium hit my bloodstream right before the lethal shot, I relaxed and felt a deep peace in knowing that Jesus was right beside me holding my hand:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil..."

Because good Christian lawmakers saw that other means of capital punishment were cruel, I was not electrocuted, gassed, hanged, or shot. I got a big dose of painkillers and then I fell asleep. I don't even remember dying. All I know is that I fell asleep strapped to a gurney and then I woke up in heaven with Jesus smiling at me and saying. "I have forgiven you of all your sins, Timothy. Enter thou into the joy of heaven."

I met many of the people who died when the old Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building. They all forgave me and we rejoiced in God's forgiveness. Jesus told us that, "All things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose."
The saved people the old Tim McVeigh killed don't even remember dying any kind of painful deaths, nor do they think with sadness about their loved ones back on earth who miss them because in heaven God has removed all tears and there is only love and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost.

Many of the people that the old, unsaved Tim Mcveigh killed are not in heaven -- but only because they chose not to be and not because the old Tim McVeigh killed them.
Since it was God's will for them to die that day, if the old Tim McVeigh hadn't gotten them, something else would've because it was God's will. They would've have died that day in an automobile accident, committed suicide, or had an accidental drug overdose because God, in his infinite wisdom, knew that they had reached the point where they would never accept Jesus and so he called in the loans he had given them on their lives.

The unsaved people who the old Tim McVeigh so-called "murdered" and who are in hell are there because they refused to accept Jesus as their savior and God required their souls of them that day in Oklahoma City. You see, even the old evil Tim McVeigh was an agent of God's righteous will, and instrument in HIS hands.

I talk about the old Tim McVeigh in the third person because he is somebody else, he is somebody who died and then was born again spiritually. Then his body died in prison but his soul was saved and that is who Tim McVeigh really is -- a blood-washed saint of God. The old Tim McVeigh is not me, for I am a new creation in Christ Jesus and all of the old things have passed away. Behold: all things are new. I don't even remember the old Tim McVeigh and his anger or violence, for in heaven God has wiped away all of that negativity and I have no thoughts of anything bad. I have only joy in Christ.

Little did he know it when he was parking the Ryder truck that day, but the Holy Ghost was calling the old Tim McVeigh to salvation, for God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And even though the old Tim McVeigh was doing something out of anger, something that would kill a lot of people -- even children and infants -- God used that act for both his glory and his righteous judgment.

Paradoxically, Mother Teresa is not in heaven because her works were done in the flesh. Mother Teresa never accepted Jesus as her personal savior. Instead, she trusted in her church membership to get her to heaven. But churches are of men, and man's ways are not God's ways. There are a lot of Catholics in Heaven, but those who didn't accept Jesus aren't here, and the same is true of people in other denominations because denominations don't save you -- only Jesus can.

Case in point: Jeffrey Dahmer is here in heaven because Bob Larson shared the gospel with him. Bob obeyed the command of Jesus to show compassion by sharing the gospel with prisoners. Bob ministered to Jeffrey Dahmer in prison and Jeffrey accepted Jesus and was washed clean of his sins and forgiven. On the other hand, Buddha is not in heaven because he leaned on his own understanding and refused to see Jehovah God manifest in the creation. Buddha wound up saying there was nothing when there was something, and that something was GOD.

It is true that the blood of Jesus can wash away any and all sins no matter how bad they are. To Jesus, sin is sin and no one sin is worse than any other, for even one sin will keep you from getting into heaven if it is not forgiven. It is not how many sins or how bad they are, it is whether or not you have accepted Jesus. That is a paradox that people can't accept because they think their works will get them into heaven and nothing could be further from the truth because we are saved by our faith in Jesus and not our good works -- and even our faith is a gift of God and not of works, lest any man should boast of is faith as Paul taught us.

I guess what I want to say in conclusion is that if Jesus can save, cleanse, and forgive Tim McVeigh, then he can save, cleanse, and forgive you. What the old Tim McVeigh did might seem evil in the eyes of man, but in God's eyes it was good because it led a lot of people who had strayed away from the faith back to Jesus Christ. Once people found out about what had happened, what the old Tim McVeigh had done, they saw how death can happen anywhere and they turned back to Jesus Christ and many who had not been saved accepted Jesus as a result of what happened that day in Oklahoma City. God used it all to his glory. The old Tim McVeigh thought he was doing something for his own glory, but the glory is always God's, and only God can turn what man calls evil into good.

Such are the paradoxes of heaven and I am blown away by them.