A damned good fellow!

Mathew was born into the Christian family of John and Chinwe Onuigbo. He was a bundle of joy to his parents, cute as a baby and adorable as a toddler. At the age of three, Mathew was accepted into nursery school, by his fifth birthday he was already in Primary one, due to a double promotion he got. He was a brilliant child and made his parents exceedingly proud. He finally gained admission into a prestigious secondary school, and as you can imagine, he won the heart of his peers and teachers. That landed him the post of class captain, a position he held all through his secondary school, at least up until he got to his graduating class and bagged the post of the head boy.

Even as a teenager, Mathew had always had a large soul, the heart of a philanthropist and a certain sympathy for the less privileged. He was often reported to have given his pocket money to pay the school fees of his underprivileged colleagues, he never hesitated to skip a meal when necessary, and he did not joke with his bi-annual visits to the orphanage.

As you can well imagine, Mathew graced his school leaving exam with distinctions and landed an admission to study law in the well known University of Lagos. A man, who seemed to have everything going for him and yet his passion for the seemingly mundane things did not wane. He soon volunteered his services to an NGO that was centered on poverty alienation.

Did I mention that Mathew had high standing moral values, the perfect example and role model, his only weakness was that he was a workaholic, or so it seemed. His pre-occupation with academics, school politics and his volunteer services left his weeks as well as his weekends very occupied, even his church attendance was affected, however who cares about church, he was doing what more than ten church goers would do, or so it seemed.

Mathew met his heartthrob Tricia Umoh, they fell in love and got married. Theirs was a union made in heaven, blessed with three children, good health, thriving businesses. The truth is that they couldn’t ask for more,  except for the increasing passion of Mathew to see that every African child got a decent education. He eventually floated a couple of NGO’s to this effect and was in partnership with the United Nations. He engaged in several humanitarian acts and was the recipient of several awards. His contributions were so enormous that posterity was bound to celebrate him.

Mathew died at the age of 81, having lived a good and fulfilling life, or so it seemed.

Again, as we can well imagine, after death, Mathew went straight to heaven, however they wouldn’t open the gates for him. He demanded to see the PR officer and he consented to his book of accounts being opened. Mathew was pretty confident of his works, and the records said it all…A good man, damned to hell! You can’t fathom the shock, disbelief and fear on Mathew’s face, why? What did I do wrong? I lived a good and moral life, I even embarked on projects most preachers wouldn’t do, is there no justice even in heaven?

The PR officer answered and said that he did and performed all the righteous acts, gave to the poor and stored up treasures for himself in heaven, however he didn’t have the pass code that would allow him access because he never confessed Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. The holy Book did say ‘except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’…the holy book also clearly spelt out to us that ‘with the heart man believes and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’.

Mathew learnt his greatest error in life after death, unfortunately it was too late. The lesson- good works don’t take you to heaven, accepting Jesus’ death and resurrection does. Share this and help spread the gospel of salvation!