The Gospel
Good people don't go to heaven, sinners do
How do you know you’re going to heaven when you die?
It’s an important question. Yet few have contemplated it.
I sat across from a gentleman in Chick-fil-A. We were having lunch, a break from an event we both attended. He and I were acquainted for years but we didn’t really know each other. Somehow that question came up.
He replied, “I’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ve always lived my life being good to others. So, if there’s a god, I’m ready to meet him when I die.”
I was alarmed by how certain he was, not knowing God, that he’d earned a passing grade. I guess I shouldn’t have been because, culturally, that’s what most people think. I’m basically a good person. I’ll make the cut.
The Bible paints an altogether different picture.
No one is good. God calls the good we do “filthy rags.” According to Him, everyone is evil. All deserve hell. Especially the person who’s trusting in his own good. The Bible is clear. Only Jesus was good. Jesus alone lived a life which God found pleasing and acceptable. He alone merited heaven.
The bad news is we don’t. We merit the other place.
The good news is Jesus willingly gives His righteousness to any who ask—a free gift. He spilt His blood (God requires blood be shed for sin) when He was willingly crucified in our place, accepting the punishment we each deserved for our unrighteous deeds.
You see, a holy God can’t overlook sin. That He would, would mean He wasn’t holy. But He is holy. The many wrongs we do, even things we think are “no big deal,” are grievious in His eyes. That’s why Jesus had to go to the cross. He died in our place to satisfy God’s perfect holiness.
We must recognize how sin affects our standing with God and that apart from Jesus we have no hope. When we trust in what Jesus did on our behalf, we’re born again, made clean in God’s sight. But the heart must evidence the new life. Although we still sin, we seek to leave the life of sin behind.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” ~ Acts 4:12
Put your confidence in Jesus, not yourself.