How To Get To Heaven
Posted by: MarkWould you consider yourself to be a “good person?” Most people will say yes without hesitation, even to say they are a “very good person.” Are you familiar with the Ten Commandments? Would you say you’ve kept them? Let’s see how you stack up using God’s rules:
Have you ever told a lie, even a small, white lie? That makes you a liar.
Have you ever stolen something, no matter what value? Ever taken anything from work, downloaded an MP3, copied a CD? That makes you a thief.
Have you ever had hate or anger in your heart? Jesus says in Matthew 5:22 God views this the same as murder.
Have you ever lusted (sexual desire) after another? Jesus says in Matthew 5:28 God views this as committing adultery in your heart.
Based on those standards above, you are a lying thief, and a murderer and adulterer at heart, and you have to face God on judgment day. If God judges you based on those standards, would you be guilty or innocent? Everyone would be guilty. If you say innocent because you do more good than bad, consider James 2:10 which says if you have broken one commandment, you have broken them all. It’s like hanging on to a chain with 10 links and one breaks. It only took one break for you to fall.
Still not convicted? Have you ever taken the Lord’s name in vain- saying “oh my …?” God gave you life and you used His name as a cuss word- He calls that blasphemy. Have you always remember to keep the sabbath? Have you always honored your mother and father? Have you ever coveted (desired something that isn’t yours)? Have you always honored God with all your mind, soul, heart and strength?
If God judges you based on His standard you would be guilty. So would I.
So, would you go to Heaven or Hell? You should say Hell. I am just as guilty as everyone else and would have been destined for Hell. If you say Heaven because you think God won’t judge you because He is a god of love, you are breaking the second commandment- you shall not make a graven image- a god to suit yourself. A god not of wood or metal made with your hands, but in your mind. An example would be a god that is contrary to what the Bible teaches or worshiping money. You may say you do more good then bad. Consider how many people someone needs to kill to be convicted of murder. Just one.
You may say, “I go to confession.” We are called to confess our sins (1 John 1:9), but confession alone won’t save you. The Bible says in Proverbs 28:13, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Consider this: a husband cheats on his wife and confesses to her he has committed adultery. The husband says he is sorry, but the next weekend he goes out and cheats again with a different woman. He again confesses to his wife what he has done. Unless the husband stops cheating and turns away from his cheating ways (repents), his confession is worthless and his wife will leave him. In the same sense, we have to do more than just confess our sins- we need to repent and stop our sinful habits.
There is a way for you to go to Heaven, though. God did something wonderful for you. In place of your being sent to Hell as punishment for your sins and suffering eternal judgment, He sent His one and only Son to die in our place for our sins. 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ died an excruciating death on the cross for your sins. Then He rose on the third day forever defeating death. If you repent of your sins (stop living in your sinful way and turn away from them) and place your trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, you, too, can have eternal salvation (Matthew 4:17, Luke 5:32, Mark 1:15, Luke 13:3; Luke 24:47).
Imagine you are in a court of law and you are facing sentencing for a crime you committed. The judge tells you that your sentence is either a one million dollar fine or life imprisonment. You tell the judge you do not have one million dollars. He is about to pass judgment on you and send you to jail for life when someone comes in the court and places one million dollars in front of him to pay your fine. The judge looks at you and says, “Your fine has been paid, you are free to go.” You may say you will never be in that situation. In this lifetime, you may be correct. What happens when you die, though?
Hebrews 9:27 says: “Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Ten out of ten of us die- we are all part of the oldest statistic. When your judgment comes, where will you go? Don’t delay, place your trust in Jesus Christ today and repent of your sins! Confess to God your sins and ask for His divine forgiveness. Then, repent of your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ, His one and only Son, as your savior. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” -1 John 1:9.
The crime you have committed is sin and your judgment is life in Hell. Someone paid your fine, though. His name is Jesus Christ and His suffering on the cross was the sentence for your sins. If you repent of your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ, the fine and judgment for your sins will be met and you, too, can have eternal life. How would you feel towards someone who paid that fine for you?
Forgiveness is available, but it is not automatic. You have to ask for it. Surrender your heart and your life to Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Nicodemus asked Jesus in John 3 what one must do to be saved. Jesus replies in John 3:3: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus continues in John 3:5-6: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
What dwells among you and controls your life, thoughts, and actions? Desires of the flesh or the Holy Spirit?
Imagine you are on a plane 25,000 feet in the air that is about to crash. There is a parachute under your seat which can save you. Simple declaring “I believe the parachute will save me” will not save you. You have to put on the parachute and jump from the crashing plane to be saved. In the same sense, you have to leave your old self and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14) like a parachute and jump from your sinful lifestyle that will leave you dead if you don’t abandon it (“to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” -Ephesians 4:22-24; “You were dead in the trespasses and sins” -Ephesians 2:1).
It is my prayer, if you are reading this and you are not saved, that you ask God into your life this moment. I pray that you place your trust in Jesus Christ as your savior and repent of your sins. Make sure you read your Bible daily and feed on the Word of God. Obey what you read. Start with the Gospel of John and see if what I have said is true. God will not let you down.
One final thought: please don’t confuse confession and repentance. Jesus told us we must repent to be saved (Luke 13:3). Confession merely means acknowledging guilt. Criminals only confess when they’ve been caught, and even then most of them won’t. We are all criminals against God. You may be offended by that statement. If you are, please reread this article and see how you have broken all of God’s commandments (moral laws). Repentance requires a turning from your sin and abandoning your old ways. To be saved, we must turn from our sin and dedicate ourselves to Jesus Christ. God will give you a new heart with new desires.
You can not earn your salvation. Nothing you do will ever save you- regardless of what a church or a certain religion may teach you. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). 1 John 5:13 tell us that we can have assurance of our eternal destiny: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” What a wonderful thing!
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:26-27). Who will be the payment for your sins? Yourself or Jesus Christ?
If the Lord is convicting your soul of your sins and you want to repent of your sins and surrender your life to Jesus, please read the related blog post Sinner’s Prayer.
Related Blog Post: Sinner’s Prayer
Related Blog Post: Surrendering Your Life to Jesus
Related Blog Post: Is Repentance Only Required At Conversion?
Related Blog Post: Am I Saved Just By Believing In Jesus?
Related Blog Post: How Not To Back Slide In Your Faith
Related Blog Post: Is Jesus the Only Way to God?
Related Blog Post: Repentance
If you have received the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart and repented or would like to be contacted by Pastor Paul and to be given information on a Bible based church in your area, please fill out the contact form below.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Don’t you believe there is a human element at work here? I definitely agree that we must be aware of our actions and our conscious desire to follow the Lord.
However, it seems by human nature we are destined to fail. Is it okay for the husband to commit adultery, in the example, to confess and *repent* and then go out and do that again?
Is it his flesh that is weak? Maybe that’s not a great example because I truly believe if that husband (or wife, women commit adultery too) were committed he could and should remain monogamous.
Let’s use the example of lying. I’ve lied and I know I will lie in the future. I’m not going to argue about intentions. The bottom line is that I’ve lied and I will again.
I do confess and I do repent, but I think it’s unrealistic to think I will never lie again, as it is human nature. Is it enough to continually repent, even though the human behavior will probably continue until death?
This is something I struggle with and I do the best I can, but many times I rely on God’s grace and mercy.
March 29th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
The human element at work here is repenting (turning from your sins) and trusting in Jesus Christ as your savior. Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9). Romans 6:15 tells us “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” A person is a slave to whatever controls them. If they are slaves to sin, they will continue to sin. If a they are a slave to Jesus Christ, they will be obedient to Him.
You are correct in saying we will all continue to sin. Romans 3:10-12 tells us “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” I struggled with this myself, also, when I was initially saved. How can one be saved and know they are saved, but know that they will still have sin in their life in the future?
Let me expand on your question about lying. If you continue to consciously lie, you have not, by definition, repented. To repent means to turn away from your sin. If you continually to knowingly lie, you have not turned away from this sinful action. Confessing that you lie is merely admitting guilt- to repent means to stop. The Bible makes the difference clear. Granted, we may still slip into a lie every once in a while- it is inevitable- but it should become to exception, not the rule.
Let me also expand on adultery (which the Bible says lust is the same as). Most men (myself included) struggle with lust. This world is so filled with sexual temptations- in public, TV, print, the Internet, movies, etc. The heart of an unrepentant sinner will give into those temptations. Romans 1:24 tells is that if we give into those temptations, God will abandon us to those evils. What one has to do is turn from these temptations and tell the flesh “NO!” It will be hard at first- it was extremely hard for me. If you repent of your sins, God will give you a new heart with new desires (2 Corinthians 5:17).
He wants you to make the first move, though. I struggled for the longest time, wondering why God would not take away my lustful desires. Once I took the first move and repented, He gave me a new heart. Granted, every once in a while, I may fall into sin, but it is the exception and not the rule. I confess my wrong, ask for forgiveness, and continue to serve God. The worst thing to do would be to turn my back on God and go back to my sinful lifestyle. I know what I did was wrong, I feel remorse, and I make a renewed effort not to give into those temptations again.
Ask God to reveal the things you need to repent of in your heart. God promises to send you the gift of the Holy Spirit when you repent (Acts 2:38). I have been praying for God to speak to your heart, and I know if you repent of your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, He will reveal Himself to you. Please read the Gospel of John to see if the things I am saying are true. Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Good works should follow once you are saved, but they are not the saving element. In Matthew 12:33, Jesus says “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.” If you are saved, you will produce good fruit (works) as a result. If I plant an apple tree, I expect to see apples growing on it. If I don’t, it probably isn’t an apple tree! James 2:26 says “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” Just as an apple tree produces apples, so does a Christian produce good works.
If your faith is dependent on good works, how many good works does it require? What is the right number and what types of good works? What if someone is paralyzed and confined to a bed for the rest of their life. Can they not be saved because they can’t do as many good works as a person who has two working legs and arms? “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
March 30th, 2009 at 9:20 am
“I know what I did was wrong, I feel remorse, and I make a renewed effort not to give into those temptations again.”
Again I wonder about the workings of the human mind. Isn’t it just human nature to have a passing thought — in this particular case — a lustful thought. I understand that you are not acting on it but the thought is there, it popped into your head and I would argue there will be times in the future that it will randomly pop into your head again.
I suppose that’s what I’m referring to. The random thoughts that present themselves. I think it’s unrealistic to say those thoughts will never again pop into your head. And if they do you are actively sinning.
Am I getting too mired in the details? It seems if I declare I will never have the thought again I am being unrealistic. Conversely, it seems if I declare I will have the thought again I am potentially turning my back on God.
Do you see what I’m saying. It seems too black and white. Where are the shades of gray? I am referring to the human element as shades of gray. It’s not a conscious desire for the thoughts to present themselves but present themselves they do.
Is it just a matter of not acting on them or a matter of attempting to banish them once and for all?
Perhaps I should engage in an email conversation regarding this topic. Do you prefer my comments or an actual email? Do tell.
And lastly, it is not my intention to argue with you, I sincerely am interested in your thoughts and beliefs as I am constantly working on honing my own beliefs. I find it helpful to bounce stuff off of other people in an attempt to further understand my own questions and doubts.
Thank you for honest and engaging conversation.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Please don’t worry about your questions- I do not think you are arguing with me. These are the same exact questions I had when I first gave my life to Christ. I appreciate your openness to discuss them on here- they will help a lot of other people struggling with the same issues. The questions you are raising are word for word the same ones I had.
Our most powerful tool against temptation is prayer. In Matthew 26:41 Jesus says “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Your flesh will always want to give into temptation- and the temptation is everywhere.
We will inevitably give into temptation every so often- as you said, it is impossible to live sinless. Romans 3:10-12 tells us “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
I wrote a post titled “Is Repentance Only Required At Conversion?” that deals with these same questions. Please click here to read it.
Sin should become the exception, not the rule, in your life, though. Pastor Paul wrote an excellent piece about lust titled “Get the Legs of Joseph” that deals exactly with a lot of the questions you have raised. Please click here to read it.
Please listen to this sermon: March 15, 2009: Zechariah: Chapters 1 and 2. Here is an excerpt from it:
Zechariah 1:3 (ESV):
“Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”
How often do we want God to make the first move, to show us a sign first? He wants you to make the first move and show Him commitment. We first need to turn from our sins (repent) and God will then pour out His glory on us.
If you repent of your sins, God will reveal Himself to you. One thing I struggled with was wanting to clean up my life first and then give me life to Jesus. Please do not do this- there will always be things in your life that you will need to repent of and clean up. God will forgive you of all your past transgressions if you ask Him for forgiveness and repent (turn away from) of your sins. Acts 2:38 says “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” If you take the first step and begin to deny your flesh of your sinful ways, He will reveal Himself to you in the Holy Spirit and give you a new heart with new desires (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I can not describe what if feels like to have the Holy Spirit dwelling among me. I just know that it is amazing. I used to dread the thought of reading the Bible and thought I never would- now I love the Word. I used to live for myself, but now I live for the Lord. It is amazing how God will reveal Himself to you if you strip away all the rules and tradition of religion and ask Him to open your heart to His Word. John 1:1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is God. You can know God personally and intimately through His Word.
God promises to send us the Holy Spirit if we repent of our sins (Acts 2:38). Please do so today and God promises to send the Holy Spirit to live among you.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I hope you guys don’t mind me joining the conversation. Going back to the example of a husband committing adultery. if he seeks his wife’s forgiveness and tells her how sorry he is, but then adds that he knows he will be unfaithful again, how would the wife feel about his “repentance?”
The basic problem we face is the human nature presented in this conversation. The Bible makes it clear that the human nature is wretched and sinful. So, people may do things and say they are natural or they cannot control those things. That doesn’t mean they are right. Many people do things under the banner of it “feeling natural,” but that doesn’t mean it is right – it just demonstrates what the Bible says about our sinful condition.
Sadly – for us – the Bible does not allow for much shades of grey. Jesus said there are sheeps and goats…wise and foolish…for Him or against Him. We can fool ourselves into thining we are somewhere in the middle, or to think we are on His side when we actually aren’t. Jesus said that many will stand before Him on Judgment Day and cry, “Lord, Lord” but they will be cast from His presence.
When we repent and trust in Christ, we become new creations. Will we sin again – yes. But less and less and less over time. And we will no longer want to sin or desire to sin. Pigs roll in the mud because that is what a pig must do to cool itself in the heat – it has no choice. That is a person living in the sinful nature – they have no choice but to give in to sin. When the Lord saves us, we become a new creature. We are no longer “pigs.” The mud that used to cool us should now repulse us.
However, we may have lazy moments and slip into the mud. But instead of rolling around and enjoying it as we used to, we immdeiately feel conviction and remorse and get back out as quickly as possible.
Consider an alocholic. If they try to sober up, but always tell themselves, “I know I will drink again” – they will never be sober. And I don’t think their AA group would let them get away with using such language. Will the alcoholic want to have a drink again – oh yes! But the more time that passes without drinking, the weaker the desire becomes.
If we try in our own efforts to not sin again, it will never happen. If our nature is to roll in the mud, we will eventually go back to the mid. We need to be changed. We need the Holy Spirit to transform us into the likeness of Jesus. That can only happen when we repent and trust in Jesus to save us.
I would urge anyone to turn from their sins and surrender their lives to Jesus, then allow Him to change you and change your desires. If you wait to make that change in yourself, it will never happen.
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