This May Shock You but... You Won't Find Good People in Heaven!
I subscribe to Dr. Charles Stanley's monthly magazine and this article was so profound, that I felt the need to share it.One section goes into depth, "Who is Jesus, anyway?" It expounds on the four possible ways to view Jesus, what He declares, and who He is, in the eyes of the people of the world. One thing He said, in John 14:6 is this:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
FACT or FICTION? If Jesus wasn't a liar, then that statement holds your afterlife in His hands!
From In Touch Ministries, How Good Is Good Enough?
The reason good people don’t go to heaven is
that there aren’t any good people. There are only sinners. No matter
how much good we do, we all have the propensity to do things our way at
another’s expense. Yet, as much trouble as our selfishness gets us into,
we continue to bow to it. It chokes the love out of marriages. It
drives a wedge between parents and their kids. It fuels ambition to the
point of self-destruction. After several millennia of human experience,
we still haven’t found a way to rid ourselves of this “taskmaster”—what
we need is to be saved, or delivered, from that thing that rages inside
us. And we need to be forgiven for all the hurt we’ve caused as a result
of our sin.
The problem is, the law convicts me of my sin but does nothing to help me overcome it. The law declares me guilty, but it provides no promise of forgiveness. No matter how hard we work to keep it, the law offers provisions for neither. Jesus, on the other hand, came to this earth to be both deliverer and forgiver. No one else in history has ever claimed to be either of those. And His appeal is not fairness, but grace.
The Bible teaches that God chose not to give us what we deserve—we call that mercy. In addition, He decided to give us exactly what we don’t deserve—and that’s grace. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, while we abandoned what was fair, God went beyond fair and paid for our sins Himself.
This means that every sinner is welcome. Everyone who gets to heaven gets in the same way. And everyone can meet the requirement. All three of these statements are supported by the most often quoted verse in the New Testament: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Believing in Jesus is the only requirement. Believing means placing one’s trust in the fact that He is who He claimed to be and that you are no longer trusting in what you have done to get to heaven—but rather, on what He has done.
The problem is, the law convicts me of my sin but does nothing to help me overcome it. The law declares me guilty, but it provides no promise of forgiveness. No matter how hard we work to keep it, the law offers provisions for neither. Jesus, on the other hand, came to this earth to be both deliverer and forgiver. No one else in history has ever claimed to be either of those. And His appeal is not fairness, but grace.
The Bible teaches that God chose not to give us what we deserve—we call that mercy. In addition, He decided to give us exactly what we don’t deserve—and that’s grace. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, while we abandoned what was fair, God went beyond fair and paid for our sins Himself.
This means that every sinner is welcome. Everyone who gets to heaven gets in the same way. And everyone can meet the requirement. All three of these statements are supported by the most often quoted verse in the New Testament: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Believing in Jesus is the only requirement. Believing means placing one’s trust in the fact that He is who He claimed to be and that you are no longer trusting in what you have done to get to heaven—but rather, on what He has done.
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