Who Goes to Heaven?



Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

The Bible, the word of God, makes it very clear how we can get to heaven. Jesus is the only way to God. When He took our place on the cross and died, He made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins. When Christ died and rose again, we became eligible to have our sins forgiven by believing and becoming a follower of Him.

It may seem clear that those who believe will enter heaven and live eternally with God. But even the fallen angels believe. Satan believes, and he will not be spending eternity with God. How can that be? What are we missing?

Different churches stress different instructions from the bible. Some say baptism is the only way into heaven. Some stress doing good works as the only way into heaven. Some encourage organized religion and going to church as being a requirement to get into heaven. Who goes to heaven if just believing is not enough?

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Getting into heaven is not difficult. We can have the assurance that we are going to be with God forever no matter what we have done in our past. He sees our hearts. He sees what we believe and what we think and what we feel about Him. It is not ours to earn by baptism or good works or even church attendance. We cannot live a sin free life. Only Christ can save us.


Eternal life with Christ is a gift from God to be accepted with open hearts. Jesus does instruct us to do all the above for the sake of our Christian walk and maturity. We show our commitment to Him and to the world by doing as He commanded but if we miss something we don’t have to fear that we will be rejected by God if we keep our hearts right with Him.

The word belief when speaking of accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior has the added component of faith in Him and in following Him. We can have belief without faith, but we cannot have faith 
without belief. Believing that something exists does not necessarily change the way we live our lives. But having faith in someone means we can trust and rely on them. They are an integral part of our lives.

In the case of Christianity, our belief in Jesus, His death on the cross and that He rose again, and our belief that God created this plan to bring us back into fellowship with Him, creates faith in our hearts. We know that we can depend on God to guide and direct our lives and to take us to live with Him in eternity. It is our hearts that show God where our faith lies. It is our life that shows others where our faith lies.

 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

There are many verses in the bible that tell us how we should live once we have believed and have faith. We should forgive others the same way that we have been forgiven by God. We should love God and keep His commandments. We should obey the Son.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

But this heaven, this eternity with God is a gift. Of course, we should do all the above. If we love someone we want to please them and live the way they want us to live. Christ forgives us, so we should want to forgive others. God loves us so much that we should love Him back and keep His commandments (which just means to follow Christ’s example). We know God wants what is best for us, so we should want to obey the Son.

We all sin. None of us is perfect, but in our hearts we love the Lord and we try to live as He lived. This is all that is required of us to get into heaven.

Others may try to get us to follow man made rules about what we should eat, wear or do. These rules may be helpful for us to follow but they will not get us into heaven.

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:25-27)

Jesus told this lawyer that he was right. He had taken the commandments and simplified them to their most basic meaning. ,We tend to make it more complicated than it is. Love God, love people the way you love yourself. It is simple to understand, even if difficult to do.

Does this mean we must love sinners?  Yes. Hate the sin, not the person just like Christ.  God loves everyone. He hates sin but He loves every person no matter what they have done. God sees our hearts. If our hearts are right with God, we will go to heaven.

Prayer: Heavenly Father who are in heaven where we want to be when this life is over, keep our hearts safe from evil. We want to love you with all we are, and we want to love each other. With your help we know we can. We know that you are with us through this life and will teach us truth so that we can live the way you want us to live and we believe that we will be with you for eternity. Amen



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