In Canada, the chances are slim that you will win the Lotto 6/49 jackpot. How slim? One in 13,983,816 for every single ticket. (1) In fact, you are much less likely to win the 649 jackpot than being struck by a bolt of lightning over the next twelve months. (2)

And yet, without fail, people spend their hard-earned money taking the chance – hoping to get lucky. Maybe the next one. And if you are patient and play every single week and live infinitely long, you are guaranteed to win – maybe not in 10,000 years or even 100,000 but at some point in the future, according to Dalhousie University Mathematician, Dr. Jason I Brown. (3)

Raymond and Gaye Lillington of Dingwall, Nova Scotia were smiling when they happened to be the one in 13,983,816. Yes, $17.4 million is a big win. But their ‘luck’ is even more staggering when you learn that just seven years earlier, the same couple had the winning ticket from the same store for another jackpot worth $3.2million.

You may call it ‘getting lucky’. I suspect even Dr. Brown would say so too. Mathematically, his calculations conclude that the chance of winning the jackpot twice in one’s lifetime is four in 10 billion. But the Lillingtons went to the bank twice in seven years. How lucky is that?!

And so … people keep buying tickets. Maybe they will get lucky too.

Even though a winner experiences a certain euphoria over such a windfall cash surprise, eventually the fiz fizzles out. Wealth is not the panacea that dreams and fantasies make it out to be. But yet – people keep-on buying tickets, knowing there’s a very slim chance they will become instantly wealthy and a far greater chance of them becoming poor through gambling.

On another note, what are the chances of you getting lucky with God? What are the chances of you ending up in Heaven when you die? Would you say the chances are better or worse than one person in 13,983,816?

The chance of you getting lucky and ending up in Heaven after you die is not one in 14 million or 14 billion. God doesn’t spin a Celestial Wheel of Fortune. Archangel Gabriel doesn’t announce God’s six winning numbers. God doesn’t draw names out of a hat. He doesn’t roll the dice or flip coins. The greater the number of candles lit for deceased loved ones or the more prayers said on behalf of someone who has died does not increase their chances of Heaven.

Deep-down-inside, many people know their chances are slim of making it to Heaven, but they are keeping their fingers crossed – hoping, that in the final analysis, God will uncover some obscure reason to grant them admission.

If this post communicates nothing else, please get this one point – there is not even a remote chance of getting lucky after you die.

There will be no team of angels scrutinizing the spreadsheets of your life to unearth some good deed that might tip God’s proverbial scales in your favour. In fact, those weighing scales only exist in the fanciful imaginations of the uninformed person.

God’s Holy Word, the Bible couldn’t be clearer.

Don’t miss God’s sweeping, no-exceptions indictment against every single person:

… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

Holy Bible – God’s Word – The Final Authority

Not one sin, even of the smallest magnitude, will ever be overlooked by God. Sin of any variety disqualifies the guilty person.

Don’t miss the red-alert Jesus issued to a group of people in the Gospel of Luke:

…Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Luke 13:3,5

Don’t miss the crystal-clear, laser-focused words of Jesus to a man who practised his religion sincerely every day:

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God… You must be born again.” John 3:3,7

What is the significance of ‘truly, truly’?

The chance of you ever getting lucky with God is not merely slim – it is nil. ZERO! Prayers for mercy and favour after one dies are hauntingly futile – useless and worthless. There is not one hopeful glimmer in even one verse of the Bible to remotely suggest that God may change His mind about you and your sins after you die.

Self-improvement endeavours, reforming one’s ways, or accumulating good deeds are not a part of God’s salvation equation either. Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-5

Being embraced by God and being welcomed into His family now and Heaven later is not a matter of luck or chance. It is a matter of absolute certainty based on one’s repentance and personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather than a one per cent chance, God assures you of 100% certainty of eternal life. Rather than an abysmal one in seven hundred chance – or worse, there is a 1:1 ratio for those who come to God in repentance and faith in Christ. Each one who comes is joyfully received by God.

God, in amazing grace, is reaching out to you right now. This is not a coincidence that you are reading this post. God knows all about your sin. He knows you are helpless and unable to save yourself.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8

As you read those beautiful words of hope and salvation from the Bible, could you find any reason to pause and thank God?

In closing, this one verse, out of many that could be cited, proves there is no room for luck in the most consequential matter facing you in your lifetime.

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3:36

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

1. https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/what-are-the-odds-of-winning-the-lottery-twice-mathematician-weighs-in-1.5071556
2. https://www.redcross.ca/blog/2010/7/what-are-the-odds
3. https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/what-are-the-odds-of-winning-the-lottery-twice-mathematician-weighs-in-1.5071556
4. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/raymond-lillington-atlantic-lottery-17-million-dollars-1.5691762