Only one car now stood between us and the Austrian/Yugoslavian border, but I knew that our wait was far from over. The Yugoslavian border personnel were already emptying its trunk, rummaging through its suitcases and ransacking its food baskets. Nothing was left untouched, and it had been exactly the same for each of the 50 cars that we had already watched pass through. Some of them had even been refused admittance!

Most of the drivers and passengers ahead of us had seemed to take this all in stride. After all, in 1981, before the fall of communism, this was a pretty routine border crossing between the east and the west! But I was an 19-year-old U.S. citizen who had only been in Europe for three months. To me, it was FAR from routine!

My final destination was the beautiful country of Greece, where my brother and I planned to spend the three-week Christmas break getting to know the culture, history and people of this ancient land. Our ultimate plan for travel was to hitchhike (we were young and foolish in those days, but God is merciful!), but when a lovely Greek couple from the school we were attending in Austria offered to drive with them as far as Thessalonica, we were happy enough to accept. But what we hadn’t known until now was that this couple were “smuggling” a television set into Yugoslavia to leave with some friends in Belgrade. Neither did we realize how illegal it was to bring electronics into Eastern Europe!

As I now watched the people in the car ahead of us get out and begin emptying out their pockets, terror grew in my heart. There was no way around it. We would be caught red-handed with the television. Would we be allowed into the country? Would they realize that my brother and I were just innocent passengers? Would they throw us all in jail?

I held my breath, my heart pounding wildly as the border guard approached our car and asked for our passports. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the command to get out, to open the trunk, to start emptying out suitcases and backpacks, to uncover that television . . . But to my amazement, the guard quickly flipped through the two Greek passports on the top of the stack and was now staring at the last two in his hand, the ones marked: “United States of America”.

He said something in Yugoslavian, but all we understood was “American”, then he hurried forward, waving the two US passports in the air. A short but animated discussion arose among the border guards, and in a matter of seconds, he was back at our window, handing us the stack of passports. “American! American!” He said. “Pass! Pass!”

It was just as easy as that! We entered Yugoslavia with our smuggled television, without even having to open the trunk! Why? Because we carried the right passports.

Friends, there will come a day for each of us when we must also cross a border-the border between Heaven and Earth. This border is even more stringent than the one between Austria and Yugoslavia. In fact, by ourselves, we will NEVER be able to pass over at all.

But there is a way. Jesus says: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9 NIV). When we accept Jesus into our lives, we become citizens of Heaven (Phil 3:20), and we are given “passports”-we are clothed “with garments of salvation”, and we are arrayed “in a robe of righteousness” (Isa 61:10 NIV). When we approach those Heavenly gates with these “passports”, our entrance into Heaven will be as easy as my entrance into Yugoslavia. But without it, we are doomed to be turned away, for Jesus Himself tells us: “No one comes to the Father EXCEPT THROUGH ME.” (John 14:6-7 NIV)

Friends, have you been covered by the blood of Jesus? Do you wear His robe of righteousness? If you do, then you carry the right passport and Heaven will be your final home. But if not, change your passport today so that you won’t have to face being turned away! To do so, Click here (http://answers2prayer.org/saviours_call.html)

Lyn Chaffart