Many passages in the Bible teach that salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone in Christ's sacrificial death and glorious resurrection, rather than by deeds that we any human merit that we may perform in our flesh. However, this passage appears to contradict the Bible's teaching that salvation is only by our faith. This passage indicates that salvation is based on the acts and good deeds that we perform throughout our lives, and that God will reward each person in accordance with our deeds. The good will be saved, while the bad will suffer. Salvation is a gift of His grace that is freely given. 

We are to live our lives as unto the Lord once we have been forgiven of our sins. We are to live by faith, not by our own efforts. We must allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through us for the glory of God and our salvation. We will all stand before the Creator and be judged by God one day and that no one will be spared from the inevitable judgement of God. Grace through our faith in Jesus Christ is our sole chance for salvation and release from the consequence of our sin.

If an action’s only intention is for one's self, greed and corruption will bring them down. Every action we have its own consequences. Man will bring himself down by being selfish in his ways. These unrighteous actions will be gravely punished in time of judgement, thus clearly separating from God, Greed is a sin that can pull people back, it allows men to crave and be tempted to greed for more, more attention, more fame, more self-praise, more money, more material things. This sin is sly as it lives deep within us because our needs cannot be satisfied as we always strive to have more. 

Righteousness and glory, man can lift himself up if he stays humble. God wants the best for us, that can only be achieved if we do our part. God does not want us to drift away from Him, thus by doing righteous actions we can be closer to Him. By giving kindness to others, we also will receive kindness from others. It also allows us to live with Him in heaven, because kindness is what brings us to Him.

As we have come across the bible verse of Mark 16:16, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that does not believeth is damned,” we learnt exactly what conditions it needs to be met when our earthly time has come to an end. In the Gospel there are two (2) things that we should be aware of; 1.) He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and 2.) He that does not believeth is damned. According to President Harold B. Lee, there are four (4) gospel truths and ordinances that we must accept totally in order to be brought to purity and holiness: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. All of this, in return, is the path to God's salvation during the Final Judgement.

The Final Judgement is where each soul from the afterlife will be placed - Heaven or Hell. Heaven is a paradise for those souls who have done good and served God and his people. The good works as a disciple and missionary of God has finally paid off. Every good deed we perform will grant us eternal life with our Creator. Heaven is reserved for those who accept God with all their hearts and who accept God's forgiveness. God utilizes the church as an instrument to bring us closer to him by putting their teachings into practice. Like so, in this paradise is where we experience real happiness and contentment with God. On the other hand, Hell is described in many ways; torment, darkness, and everlasting punishment. This is where the souls of those who did not repent their sins and believe in God will be placed. We are the ones who condemn ourselves to an eternity of torment by ignoring, avoiding, and rejecting Him. God does not abandon anyone because he recognizes that each of us has the ability to change for the betterment of the community and our relationships with Him.

During our living life we have the opportunity to be baptized, believe and spread the Gospel, and to repent our sins. Each of our efforts to be the best servant and believer as we can be will be rewarded in the afterlife, where we will join God in paradise. Thus, it’s not too late to bring ourselves back to God and to be faithful to Him. Because our journey to purity and holiness brings blessings to each and one of us, no one gets to be excluded. However, if our time ends, the judgement depends on what we have done for God, for others, and for our salvation. 

To summarize, this biblical scripture teaches us to be modest and human in our interactions with others because we never know where we may end up. Let us accept God with all of our hearts in order to receive eternal life and avoid eternal punishment if we win against sins.

We are all aware about death and how we will all have to encounter it one day. It is when the right time comes for our lives to be removed from the living world and proceed to being judged whether we go to heaven or hell. In the bible verse above, it shows how the rich man has entered the place surrounded by flames or what we call “hell” while Lazarus on the other hand has entered a place guarded by angels or the “heaven” we all know. It is also stated how the rich man is looking up from below begging Abraham to help him and end his suffering in hell. The question is, why did the rich man enter hell and Lazarus enter heaven? 

A few verses earlier in the bible chapter, we are told how Lazarus was this beggar outside the rich man’s house who is asking for alms or those small donations which he really need. The rich man, despite having so much food and money, chose not to give even crumbs to Lazarus who is sick and hungry. A few years later, they both passed away. Upon entering the afterlife, the rich man finds himself in hell where he is in complete agony and is continuously suffering while Lazarus enters heaven and is reunited with Abraham. This is when Lazarus questions why Lazarus is up there while he is below and at the same time asking pity from Abraham.

This bible verse greatly portrays that our actions do have consequences and supports the saying, “regret is always at the end.” In our lives, we will always have to make choices and decisions, but it is only up to us on whether we will pick the right one or not. Most of the time, people choose to do things that will only benefit them and not thinking of how it will affect other people. This is the problem with the most of us, we quickly jump into making decisions without knowing the rightful consequences of it. We become instantly blinded by how it will only be helpful to us and not worrying what will happen after. 

To sum up everything that has been stated above, we all make decisions anytime and anywhere. We also are the ones that can help in deciding what fate we will have in the future and this is through our actions we do, choices we make, and decisions we pick. Therefore, we should do the right things and choose to do what is not only beneficial for one person, but for many more. 

I can relate on what Ms. Shaira Rodriguez has shared with us and she said that "In the chapters 2:11; 20:6; 21:8 of revelation, hell was coined as second death. The word second death appeared exactly on those passages. Those who believed in God and are suitable in heaven will not experience the so-called second death. The second death was defined as spending eternity in the lake of fire, which is basically, what we humans call death. The first death is our physical death, after that death we will be Judged by God, if we lived a life of his will, accepted his glory, and believed in him then, we will get what he has promised of eternal salvation with him in Heaven. However, if we have not accepted the Lord, did not act accordingly in his salvation, and has not shown love to our fellow brothers and sisters with a heart that manifested God’s glory, then that is when we will get hurt by the second death, which is hell." Ms. Shaira wanted us to know that there is a second death for those people who will not believe in God that they will commit sin with no hesitation. just like in my gospel passage, you will encounter someone that will push you to do sins.

According to Revelation 19:20 “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” It is stated there are times we will encounter people who are anti-Christ. There those people who believe on something that doesn’t concern about God or religion rather they worship things and don’t care about God. Those people are the one who will bring us to many sins, and they will lead us to hell. As we all know that sins will be the reason for us to be judged and thrown to hell.

In my opinion they believe that those who are false prophet and anti-Christ didn’t die physically rather they are thrown alive to the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. The passage is telling us that it is dangerous to believe on something against God. We might die early because of it. But all I know is that for every sin we commit there is a consequence where they will make us suffer and accept those consequences. Believe in God for He is the only one giving grace and protecting us from danger and help us for every problem with great faith in God and good deeds.

I agree on what Ms. Shaira Rodriguez said "This basically shows that when we die its either we spend eternal salvation with God (heaven) or spend in eternal fires (hell). The scripture made us look back to how we currently act. Have we been acting in accordance with God’s will? Have we shown love to our fellow brothers and sisters? Most importantly, have we fully accepted Lord’s salvation in our life? We are judged by our holiness as said in Revelation 20:6, “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.”. All who believed and trust Jesus Christ have had their sins forgiven and God has declared them to be holy and as promised will continue to live with him in eternal salvation. However, if we continue to be a coward, faithless, and does not act accordingly to his will, will have to go to the second death after our physical death. That’s why while we’re still living, we need to evaluate, open our hearts, minds, and eyes to God’s salvation and believe in him. Because once we have put ourselves in his loving presence, we will experience happiness not only in this earthly life but also in the after life. 

I remember the time where I doubt that there is God. I have this problem in life where all my hopes are down and almost believed that God didn’t exist so what happen was that I’d been thinking that God is only a statue that the roman catholic made of to have something to believe on. You know just to mess with people that God will save u from sin and others. After that I’d been doing sins like lying to my parents so that I can go out and play with friends, cursing words using God’s name in vain and doing bad things. So, one time feel a high fever and when I was at the hospital the doctor said I have dengue and I almost can’t move and get up of bed. While lying on the hospital bed there is this statue of St. Joseph Marello and that moment I prayed to God and after 1 week I’ve been out of hospital and I went straight to the Church of San Juan Batangas to thanked God for what just happened to me. That is the time I decided to join Altar knights and because of that I’ve become loyal and servant of God even when went to Pasig to continue my school.

With my experience, I relate myself at the passage of Revelation 19:20 “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.”. God is always watching us and God will always judge what we do in our life. We must be careful on what we are going to do for we might not see God with our naked eye but the spirit that we have is the one who will take us to God or maybe because of our dirty spirit we might be thrown to the lake of fire.