"I'm basically a good person" (60%)
When you say you believe you are a pretty decent person, keep in
mind that it is because you are comparing yourself on man's scale,
not on God's. If you compare yourself to Hitler or Charles Manson,
certainly you seem to be "good". But what if you compared
yourself to Mother Teresa? Most people fall somewhere in the middle
of these two extremes.
The Bible teaches that no one is good (Romans
3:10). Not you. Not me. Not Mother Teresa. Not the Catholic
saints. Not even the Prophets God sent to earth in centuries past.
Only God is good. (Luke
18:18-20)
Do you realize that it is impossible for a good, holy, perfect,
truthful God to have in His presence anyone who has even made one
mistake? Since that is the case, we have a problem: how can we come
to live with a Holy God?
"I've never hurt anyone" (2%
response)
Are you sure you've never hurt anyone? Have you considered
the things you speak to others? Jesus warns in Matthew
5:21-22 that even being unjustly angry with someone puts you in
danger of judgment. Also, how many people have you hurt because of
things you failed to do?
"I've tried to keep the 10
Commandments" (5%)
First, take a look at this before answering:
What
does God expect of me?
Now can you honestly say you've never lied--even a "little
white lie"? Never stolen--even just a paper clip? Perhaps
you've never committed adultery in the physical act, but did you
know that Jesus
said that lusting after someone is the same to God?
If you've broken even just one law one time, that
makes you a lawbreaker. If you will listen, your own conscience will
tell you that you are certainly a law breaker. See: Am
I good enough for heaven?
"I go to church" (8%)
Going to church is a good thing. (See >>
Why
should Christians go to church? and >>
How
can I find a good church?) But if you think that just going to
church is good enough to earn your way to heaven, take a look at Romans
3:27 and Ephesians
2:8. These passages are clear that nothing we can do on earth
(like trying to go to church to gain merit with God) can make us
righteous in His never-failing sight.
Jesus had strong words for the Pharisees
of His day. They tried to merit favor with God by acting religious.
But Jesus called them "a
brood of vipers". See also Matthew
9:11, 12:39,
16:1-4;
Luke
7:39, 18:11.
"I believe in God" (10%)
Perhaps you think that belief in God is good enough to get you to
heaven. But consider this: since Satan and his demons believe that
God is real, does that mean they too will be in heaven? (James
2:19) See also Romans
1:20.
"I've done the best I could" (15%)
Maybe you have tried to do the right thing for the most part. You've
made some mistakes, and if God weighs your good deeds vs. your bad
deeds, you hope you will come out ok. Again, we have the problem
that if you have only sinned once in your life, you've still broken
God's law and are a lawbreaker. God sees our righteousness as "filthy
rags". When we think of God's standard of holiness, we
don't even come close! (See >>
How
good is good enough?)
We have all broken God's laws and stand guilty before a holy God.
Just as a human judge must enforce justice and punish evildoers,
God, who is completely just, holy and righteous, must also punish
sin.
What is the answer?
When this life is over, we will each stand before God on Judgment
Day and give an account for our life. No matter how good we tried to
be, our best efforts will all be as "filthy rags" in God's
sight, that is, if the sin separating us from God has not been
removed.
God, who is holy and just, and therefore must punish sin, is also
loving and merciful and does not want to punish us.
To solve this problem, God sent His only Son Jesus Christ as God
incarnate, fully God and fully man, to pay our sin debt for us.
The only way to get to Heaven is to put our faith in Jesus
Christ. Why is Jesus so important? He is the only one who
lived on earth a sinless life. As fully
God and fully man, he was tempted as we are yet was without
sin.
A fellow sinner could never set you free from God's judgment by
taking your penalty on himself. Only Jesus could qualify to do that.
With the sentence of death upon us, 2,000 years ago, God came in
the flesh, stepped into our courtroom, and paid our sin debt
Himself. Like a compassionate judge giving his own life to save the
guilty, Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of the world - the
just dying for the unjust.
This GIFT is absolutely FREE. Like any other true gift, it is not
earned or deserved.
The gift of eternal life is received by faith.
Realizing that we cannot save ourselves, and that we deserve
God's judgment for our sins, we come to Him by faith. With a heart
willing to obey God, fully dependent upon Him, we place our faith
and trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins and
eternal life.
"For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one
can boast."
You can receive the gift of eternal life right now.
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