I’m going to let you in on a secrete something that I have known for several years now. I’m not good enough to go to Heaven! I'm really Not! Jesus said: “unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven! ~Matthew 5:20” In the time of Christ the Pharisees were a group of religious men that attempted to follow the law of God to the letter. These men in everything they did were humanly speaking as good as is humanly possible. They prayed to God continuously, they memorized the Torah (the Old Testament books of law) they also memorized the psalms & proverbs, the many books of the Profits basically the entire Old Testament of the Bible, they Tithed (gave 1/10th of all they earned) even to the tiniest income. The people of that time considered the Teachers of Religious law and the Pharisees to be good and they looked to them for teaching on how to conduct yourself. Think of the best person you know, maybe the Pastor of a church, you may consider this person to be a good person but in following God’s law and knowledge of scripture they don’t even come close to a Pharisee. So what was Jesus saying to the people? Think of the best person you know, they’re not good enough to get into heaven. So if the best person you can think of isn’t good enough to get into heaven where does that leave you and me?
The good news is that God sent His Son Jesus Christ in a real body the same sort of body you and I have: He felt pain, sorrow, and hunger. He was faced with the same temptations we are faced with everyday yet He didn’t sin (break God’s Law) once. He was perfect in thought, word, and deed. He is “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ~John 1:29” “Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ~Romans 3:23” “The wages of sin is death. ~Romans 6:23” That means what you and I have earned for our sins is death and it’s not just the death of your body but the death of our souls. In Revelation 21:8 the bible talks about a lake of burning sulfur which is Hell, the death of your soul, the second death. God loved us so much He sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ to take the punishment for our crime. Once we die we either go to Heaven or to Hell there is nowhere in between and there is no returning. Jesus paid a price for our crimes that we can’t pay because He was both God and human He could lay down His life in our place then take it up again. “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. ~John 3:16” How can you be saved and enter Heaven? Believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for your sins and then three days later rose from the dead defeating death. Trust in His goodness to save you on the Day of Judgment and not your own. If you do that you will move from death to life and God will give you His Holy Spirit as a deposit for your salvation. I encourage you to spend time with God, read your Bible and do what it says, pray to God. Bad people go to Heaven and that is good news for me and you both.
God Bless,
Mike Peek
Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus ~Acts 20:21
