18 Inches –

The Distance Between Heaven and Hell

 My name is Katie Braun and this is my story...

I cannot remember a time when I did not believe in God.  My parents always taught me that God existed, and took me to church.  I learned the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth, the story of Jesus’ death on the cross, and many other stories from the Bible.  I always believed I was a good person, and therefore I would go to Heaven at death.  However, I was a lost sinner on my way to a sinner's hell, missing Heaven by just 18 inches.

During my junior year in high school, a friend invited me to her church.  For the first time in my life I was exposed to true preaching from the Bible rather than hearing man's stories with a little scripture added.  I went to church consistently and I enjoyed it.   It was here that I first heard of salvation, and the need to be born again.  John 3:3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  (Note: salvation, saved, and born again are Biblical terms referring to the forgiveness of sins by God and the rescue of a person from the power and penalty of that sin. This is God's requirement for everlasting life. Lost is a Bible term used to describe those who have never turned to Christ as their personal Savior.)

That summer, I was asked to go to the church youth camp as an assistant cook.  The first evening after the preaching time, a sense of fear came over me.  I talked with the pastor about it and we prayed.  The fear was gone; at least for a time.  The next Sunday, at the coaxing of my friends, I went forward during the last hymn following the sermon.  I do not remember why I was going forward, but this experience is when I claimed to have been saved.  I believed I was finally on my way to Heaven, but if I had died, I would have missed Heaven by just 18 inches.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that when Jesus lives in your heart, you are a changed person.  (“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”)  Nothing changed in my life.  I listened to ungodly music, dressed immodestly, drank alcohol, dishonored my parents and participated in immoral acts.  I certainly did not put God first, nor did I care about His Word.  The truly saved person would desire God first in his or her life, and to please Him.

Five years later, I married a man I had met at that church.  We became busy with work, school, and friends, and drifted away from church.  Our priorities were on “us” and the things of the world, chasing the American Dream, not desiring the things of God.  Two years later we moved out of state to find better jobs.  My mother encouraged us to find a church in the area because she knew we needed to be in church hearing the Word of God being preached, but we had too many things to do and places to be.

Near our home was a church that we drove past continuously that had a message board.  One day the message said, "Get right or get left."  I knew exactly what the message meant, and it scared me.  I had learned about the second coming of Jesus Christ (or the rapture) which would be the time when Christ would return to earth for those who were saved.  I knew I had been enjoying the world rather than attending church and serving the Lord.  I was scared of being left at Christ's return, so I wanted to go back to church to "get right".  Nearly eight years after we stopped going, we returned to church and began going regularly.

About one year after we began to attend church regularly, I began to have strong doubts about my salvation and wondered if I would truly go to Heaven if I were to die.  I met with the wife of a church leader and told her of my doubts and the fear of going to hell.  I told her that I had already been saved, trusting Jesus Christ as my Savior years earlier.  She asked, "Wouldn't you rather pray now and know for sure about your salvation, than to continue to wonder if you really got saved as a teen at church camp?"   So, for a second time, I prayed and thought I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.  Again I believed I was finally on my way to Heaven, but I was still going to miss it by just 18 inches.

I became involved in numerous church activities -- a Sunday school teacher, a children's church teacher, helping in the church office, and was even doing a Bible study with someone in the church's discipleship ministry.  If someone were to ask me at that time if I were to die, would I go to Heaven?, I would have said, “yes”, but if I had died, I would have missed Heaven by 18 inches.

Time went on and I still had doubts and fears.  I had no true peace about ever getting saved.  I still feared the return of Christ.  I had a tormenting fear, especially at night, of dying and going to Hell. I would dread it when people talked about, or Pastor preached about, the Lord returning.  I was so afraid that if my family was in another aisle in the grocery store and I couldn’t find them, I would panic thinking that I had missed the rapture.  When the doubts and fears came, I would talk myself into believing that I did get saved, reflecting on the time at youth camp.  

Once, while having a Bible study with someone, she asked me if I knew that I was a sinner.  I said an unbelieving "yes", but the question kept bothering me.  After that I began wondering what sin I had participated in.  After all, I was a good person. I never did anything bad or wrong in my eyes.  Proverbs 14:12 states, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Judges 21:25 says, "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." 

I was still concerned about the rapture and hell and turned to my husband.  We talked about not seeing the sin in my own life.  He asked if I thought my sin were any different than the sin of a convicted murderer.  No, I didn't commit sin.  I was a good person!   The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20, "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."  I wasn't looking at sin from God's perspective, but from a man's perspective of "little" sins and "big" sins.  

I did things which were right in my eyes and wrong in God's eyes.  At that time I didn't know it, but I was proud, self-sufficient, and trusting in my own self-righteous good works. In my own eyes I was good and I didn't do anything wrong. But in God's eyes, I was a sinner on my way to a sinner's hell. 

On November 21, 1997 at church family camp, I heard a message on false repentance (saying sorry, but only because you got caught).  I asked God if I had ever truly repented of my sins and believed on Him as Lord and Savior.  I prayed that God would show me the true condition of my heart.  I read and prayed Psalm 139:23-24, "Search me, O God, and know my heart:  try me, and know my thoughts:  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 

God answered my prayer on November 22, 1997, when I heard the salvation testimony of a preacher's wife who had only been saved a little over a year.  She had fooled herself for 30 years into thinking that she was saved.  She, too, had doubts of her salvation and a fear of Jesus' return.  It was as though I, not her, were speaking.  A verse she read was Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags..."  God spoke to my heart in that verse and showed me what my goodness and good works looked like to Him -- filthy rags. 

After her testimony, my friend asked me if I knew if I would be going to Heaven when I died.  I said I didn't know, but deep down, I knew that I wasn’t.  My husband came to me, and I told him everything.  He told me of my need to put my trust in and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. This time I knew that this was what I needed to do.  I finally knew in my heart that I was a lost, undone, helpless sinner, and the only thing I could do was turn to Jesus Christ for salvation.  I repented of my sin, especially the sin of pride, and asked Jesus into my heart, and He saved me; I know He did.  If you ask me now how I know that I'm really saved,  1 John 5:13 says, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life..."  God says that if you are saved, you will know it for sure, and I have that peace that one day I will meet Jesus face to face in Heaven.

You see, before salvation, I only had a head knowledge and not a heart belief, in the Lord Jesus Christ.  I nearly missed Heaven by 18 inches -- the distance between my head and my heart.  Romans 10:9 says, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

What about you?  Do you have a true peace in your heart that is only from God that you are on your way to Heaven?  Or, are you a good person, as I thought I was, on your way to Hell?  Matthew 7:23-24 states, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."  Please don't fool yourself into thinking you are going to Heaven.  If you only believe in your head, you will die and go to a sinner's Hell.  I was headed there before Jesus Christ saved me, and now I know I have a home in Heaven for sure.