You Can't Talk or Work Your Way into Heaven

Don't believe these FALSE statements! 

• If I'm a good person and do my best for others, I will have a good life, and God will let me into heaven.
• I have accepted Jesus into my heart, so God will forgive all my sins, no matter what I do or how I live, and I will go to heaven.
• Once I reach heaven, I can talk to God, and He will let me in.

Our Unawareness and Confusion

Because of Adam and Eve's choice to sin, we are all born sinful, unaware, and separated from God. As infants and children, we don't get to choose our parents or the conditions we enter the world. When we grow and experience pain, our hearts and minds can get hard and confused about God and Jesus. 

Until we open our hearts and minds to explore God's truth and the life and character of Jesus Christ, we are left with the imperfect world's perspective of them. We can be deceived into believing the statements above by not knowing God's truth. Jesus tells us. 

"You are mistaken, not (knowing) or understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God."  - Matt. 22:29, NASB 1995

Without Jesus, we are unprotected from the influences, confusion, and lies of the devil, whose goal is to "steal, kill, and destroy us" (John 10:10). He keeps us confused, deceived, and distracted so we do not find God or we blame and deny him. Peter, one of Christ's disciples and closest friends, warns us.

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. - 1 Peter 5:8, NASB 1995

Our enemy's influence and goal can be seen in the pain, suffering, darkness, evil, and self-absorbed motives throughout the world. If the devil were good and spoke the truth, there would not be lies, murder, abuse, addictions, and other destructive strongholds in our lives. We must know the truth about our eternity and choose God BEFORE our body dies. Let's look at how we can be deceived. 

The Procession of Our Deception

First, always be aware that our enemy will use a truth or partial truth of God and add to or twist it. He also uses our weaknesses or sinful desires to keep us from seeking God's truth for ourselves. These facts are proven when Satan spoke to Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'" 4 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 

• Gen. 3:1-6, NASB 1995

Notice how Satan questions and changes God's words while adding the bait of being "like God." This sin of pride is what got Lucifer cast from eternal heaven with God. Satan loves to make others follow his way and be eternally separated from God and tormented for all eternity.

Also, notice that we can choose to listen, look, desire, and act in sin. When we are walking and working with Jesus daily, the enemy has no power over us unless we listen to him and choose to take the bait of temptation and sin. Our only protection against Satan is clothing ourselves in the righteousness of Jesus Christ through our salvation and living as his disciple. Let's look at God's truth about the false statements at the beginning.

Unwrapping the Lies

No one will step into heaven unless they receive salvation. You can't earn Christ's gift by being a good person.

• Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."                  - John 14:6, NASB 1995

• For by grace, you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.        

         - Eph. 2:8-9, NASB 1995

• If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes.              - Rom. 10:9-10, NASB 1995

• Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.             - Acts 2:38, NASB 1995

Following God doesn't mean you will have a good or easy life. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, wasn't born into royalty or rich. He chose to endure all of our pain in our human condition to show us how to remain loyal to God on earth so we could spend eternity with him in heaven. Jesus tells us.

• "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.                                       - John 15:18-20, NASB 1995

• These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."        - John 16:33, NASB 1995

Salvation doesn't mean you can live for the devil on earth and walk into heaven when your body dies. God's forgiveness is not a license to live a worldly, sinful life. Jesus didn't pay for the penalty of our sins so that we could live in sin with the devil.

• For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.                                                                                  - Rom. 6:5-8, NASB 1995

• Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.             - 1 John 3:7-10, NASB 1995

You must choose Christ BEFORE your body dies, or you will spend eternity in pain and torment. 

• But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

• 41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.                                    - Matt. 25:31-34, 41, NASB 1995

Whom We Serve on Earth Determines Our Eternal Home

God created us with his hands and breathed life into each of us. He made us in their likeness and with the freedom to choose whom we will serve. Everyone's body will die. Once you are dead, it's too late to choose Jesus.

We will all face this world's natural disasters, pain, and personal hardships. Do you want to face them in your unprotected, sin-imprisoned, imperfect flesh with the condemnation of Satan, or do you want the eternal salvation, help, strength, wisdom, and power of Jesus Christ living in you?

If you have questions or do not believe me, read a New American Standard 1995 Study Bible. Look for a church that teaches the Bible and ask the Pastor questions. Test what the pastor says against what God's word says. Unfortunately, not all pastors or churches believe or live according to the Bible. Keep searching until you find one. God will guide you.

Do not believe Satan's lies; you will have time later to look up information on God or to choose Him. Only God knows the number of our days. He keeps lovingly pursuing you through warnings, other people, and ways that you will realize he exists. 

God's desire is that "none should perish." (2 Peter 3:9). He desires that you would come to know him now. He desires that you accept the salvation of Jesus and walk into heaven to spend eternity with them! Take His hand!