It's a common misconception that 'good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell'. Honestly, it's about a commitment, dedication, and relationship with God and Jesus Christ through the Spirit that is so hard to get down in words that you're probably either scratching your head, laughing, or preparing a rebuttal while reading this. You see, Jesus doesn't look at what you did, or how many people you saved, or how humble you were - he looks at why you did it. No, killing people in the name of God does not get you into heaven - that's not what I mean when I say he looks at the motive. I'm saying if you are following the Bible, going after God, and loving all as yourself, but keeping Him as the foremost thing in your life - there's nothing really that you've got to worry about.
You are right in pointing out the common misconception "good people go to Heaven, bad people go to Hell." However, your reasoning that " Jesus doesn't look at
what you did but
why you did is incorrect. Christianity isn't about good intentions. Wouldn't good intentions be an action you would be required to take in and of itself? None of us would ever be able to have good enough intentions to save us, ever. Also, you perhaps unintentionally contradicted yourself when you said
It's a common misconception that 'good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell'. Honestly, it's about a commitment, dedication, and relationship with God and Jesus Christ through the Spirit
. You are saying Christianity is not based on whether you are a good person or bad person, but in your next statement you say that it's about a person's commitment, dedication, and relationship with God and Jesus Christ. How much commitment and dedication would you have to have? There is
no way our own actions could save ourselves. This is what the Bible is about-Every human being is born into a sinful state, and a broken relationship with God. (Psalm 51:5-6) God can't be around sin, because He is perfection. His very nature cannot tolerate the presence of sin. He is after all God; perfection. Without the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we can never be in a relationship with God. This was God's purpose in sending His holy son Jesus to Earth. Jesus is perfection- God who came to Earth in the flesh. Jesus came to Earth to save us from our sin, and the consequences of our sin (death). He was the
perfect sacrifice, the
perfect payment. Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sakes by allowing Himself to be crucified on a cross. His death was enough to pay the price for our sins. after three days, Christ resurrected from the grave. Death could not keep perfection in it's grip. Since Jesus paid the price for us completely, why are we all not saved? The answer to this is because God has given us free will. We can either choose to believe and put our faith in Jesus to save us, or refuse Him. In John 3:16-17, we are told- "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son to into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." What then are we supposed to believe about Jesus? Most historians will tell you that a man named Jesus walked the Earth, who professed to be one with God. Is it believing that Jesus was one with God and died on the cross for our sins; paying the price for them completely? in James 2:19 we are told that the demons believe that there is one God, and tremble. ( In other places throughout the New Testament of the Bible we see that the demons believed Jesus was God.) After all, doesn't Satan believe in God? So we can see that believing in Jesus means more than believing in His existence. First off, it
begins with accepting Jesus is was who He claimed to be. ( The divine Son of God, who came to Earth and sacrificed Himself for our sake, dying then rising from the grave; basically believing what was stated above). But in order to be saved, you must put your faith in Jesus Christ to save you from your sins; trusting that what He did was enough to save you, but also trusting in Him personally to save you from your sin. Basically, trusting in God's integrity. The most difficult part of believing is having faith that Jesus will keep His promise. However, I am confident that He will. So as you can see, there is no work involved in being saved, but only faith in somebody else's work; and a trust in that person who completed the work to keep their promise. It is simply faith in Jesus Christ. This is what the Bible is all about. Upon putting our faith in Jesus, we are saved and the Holy Spirit begins to dwell in us. (Ephesians 1:13)
A very small, yet increasingly loud, viewpoint is that we are all saved by grace
Cerce, According to Romans 3:23-24-"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified
freely through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus." (We can't redeem ourselves!) in Romans 4:5 we are told-" But to him who
does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his
faith is accounted for righteousness" In Ephesians 2:8 believers are reminded that "
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. In fact, we are told in Romans 4: 4
" To him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but debt." If you need anymore proof that we are indeed saved by grace through faith, I suggest the book Romans in the Bible. John, Galatians, and Ephesians are also excellent books to read.
Humans have tried to perfect ourselves by our own actions many times over, and have yet to succeed. The idea that if we work hard enough, we will eventually become perfect in God's sight is silly. Simply crack open a history book if you want to see what I mean. To everybody reading this who isn't interested in this stuff, I encourage you to think about the implications for eternity if Christianity is valid. Maybe it would be worth it to take a deeper look. I truly am sorry if I come across as harsh in this post; it just seemed that there weren't many clear cut answers being given that were backed up by the Bible. This is something very close to my heart. I am also sorry about the length of this post! I hope somebody takes the time to read it! I realize that there are a lot of questions I didn't answer. Paladin-X, I would love to talk about this some more with you, if you would be at all interested. I know I didn't talk about the likely-hood of God's existence compared to other Atheism and other beliefs, etc. etc., but I would be happy to discuss this sort of thing in a later post. Here is the name of a great video on Youtube- " THE NEW BIRTH-What does it really mean to be 'Born Again' . it was created by current pastor, who is an INTJ. He did a really wonderful job explaining things!
