Is "Being Good" Good Enough?
What Happens When I Die?How often do you pause and give deep thought to eternity? Specifically, how often do you stop and think about what happens when you die?
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Is “Being Good” Good Enough?
How often do you pause and give deep thought to eternity?
Likely not often! It is a heavy subject with a lot of questions and many seemingly unknowns. It is easier to skip the subjects of death and eternity and just focus on the day-to-day, right? Furthermore, how confident are you in your viewpoint on ‘what’s next’ in the afterlife?
Is there only one true God?
What is Heaven like?
Is being a ‘good person’ going to get us to Heaven?
Who goes to Hell and who goes to Heaven?
“In WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE, you will see principles of ‘living proof’ testimonies to address the most important question in life. This book gives you a framework to determine where you and those around you are on your spiritual journey. You will learn practical ways to come closer and ultimately answer this question to settle it for eternity. It’s been said, you can’t really live until you’re assured of life forever.
This is a must-read if the question of eternity has ever rolled into your mind.”
“WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? is a great resource for people investigating the answer to this question, as well as leaders, mentors, pastors, churches, and organizations looking to help others answer this question. In particular, beyond the quality content that is personal and relatable, this book carries moral authority because of Jerod Hoffman’s faithfulness to Christ, to the local expression Christ’s Body for over thirty years here at Emmanuel, and to complete this book in obedience to God’s direction.”
About Jerod Hoffman
My life story is not really remarkable at all. I’m sharing this part just for context and I suspect that a number of people can relate to the “normal” or “average” life that I have lived. I’m not a pastor and I don’t have a theology degree—I’m just an “average Joe.”
I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota, about 30 minutes north of downtown Minneapolis (mostly in Coon Rapids). I have two sisters, two half-brothers, and my parents were married until I was 18 years old, then divorced. We lived a “normal” middle-income suburban life, hanging out with friends in our neighborhood all the time and playing in sports that we were interested in.
Religion and spirituality were not that important in our household nor with my friends, from what I could see. I guess it’s common to hang out with people like yourself. We went to church maybe a handful of times each year, for sure on Christmas and Easter. I was put in my Catholic classes (CCD) from elementary through high school. I went to first communion around 1st grade and eventually went through “confirmation” around 11th grade.
In general, I’d say I just didn’t care much about spiritual things and faith. If I ever saw people really into their faith it seemed like it would be boring and they seemed a bit weird. How could they be getting so happy off of “that stuff”? I guess I just felt OK with how I was and didn’t feel the need to do anything else.
When I was almost 19, I started dating a young lady that was different than others that I had known or dated. She started telling me about her personal relationship with Jesus Christ and how important it was to her. As we dated for a few months her mom was also very engaging relative to learning about the Bible, and we would have back-and-forth deep discussions on faith, religion and the Bible regularly.
During the first two years of my college I started going to church with them on most of the weekends that I was back in town from college. About two years after meeting this young lady and hearing about the need to have Jesus as a personal savior, not just a “god out there somewhere” relationship, I stopped and bowed my head and asked Jesus to come into my life and to be my Lord and Savior. I put my full trust and faith in the God of the Bible, in Jesus. That day changed my life forever.
Eventually I married that young lady after five years of dating and now we’ve been married for over 30 years and have three adult children. I got my master’s degree in civil/structural engineering and became a licensed Professional Engineer. I have worked as a structural engineer designing buildings all of my career and it’s one area I feel I give back by providing jobs to many people in the US and abroad. I love my job and I give my best to it every day, but also try my best to not have it sneak into the number one thing in my life before God, as that is a challenge for me.
Having a personal relationship with Jesus has not made me perfect, by any means, of course, and never will. No one is “perfect” (or sinless) except God/Jesus. Being saved has not made everything in my life go smoothly and I’ve had to get through a number of things, both self-inflicted and seeming for no reason at all.
I’ve been through some major challenges and setbacks in my life, personally, at my job and financially. Being saved doesn’t mean you have a carefree life with no struggles; however, what it does is give you is one source of immense hope and comfort (Jesus) to walk through these valleys and bruises of life with you.
The thought process and early work for this book started 23 years ago, believe it or not (I’m slow!). God put it in my heart to write this book by a nudging (a feeling) from the Holy Spirit that it was part of my calling. I started categorizing the scripture from the Gospels during my daily bus commutes to and from work, and some flights to jobsites for my job.
The approach to this book follows my personality and DNA. As a structural engineer, I design buildings and other large structures. Our methodologies are all founded on analytical science and physical testing. The results are essentially black and white for nearly all principles and processes. There is one right answer when it comes to proving if the physics of the situation works (called statics for building design).
In a similar way, my heart led me to write this book knowing that the Gospel is also very black and white—it has very clear and hard lines between what is true and what isn’t. Even though these black and white lines of the Bible cause disagreement, anger, and even worse in the world, it is what it is. As the saying goes, we can talk about anything in a mixed crowd except politics and religion, right?
The Bible has survived history because of testing. The Gospel is similar to physics—it points to one true answer, and that answer is Jesus Christ. The answer is that there is only one way to go to Heaven and be with the one true God of the universe, and that is through true faith in Jesus Christ.
My hope and prayer is that each person reading this book is drawn to really give Jesus a try. That each of you will stop and really ponder this situation. That each of you will, at a minimum, read the New Testament book of Matthew (or any of the Gospels) and the Book of Acts. It doesn’t take long, I promise! What do you have to lose?
This is really a life-or-death decision and there is so much upside to securing your place in Heaven. I want all of you to find that!
Blessings to you!
Jerod