How To Get To Heaven

by Alan Smith

    A teacher asked the children in her Sunday School class, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would I get into heaven?"

    "NO!" the children all answered.

    "If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would I get into heaven?"

    Again, the answer was "NO!"

    "Well," she continued, "then how can I get to heaven?"

    In the back of the room, a five-year-old boy shouted out, "You gotta be dead!"

    Children tell it just like it is, don't they? But the children in that class understood something that most older folks haven't yet learned -- that entrance into heaven is not attained by all the good works we may do.

    We sometimes hear people say, "I'm sure that so-and-so will go to heaven because they've done so many wonderful things." Or maybe we even take confidence in our own accomplishments thinking that we have done more good deeds than others we know.

    Jesus came to tell us that we can never be good enough to "earn" our way into the presence of God. Our very best efforts fall far short. In fact, there's only one way to get to heaven.

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

    The question is not, "How many good things am I doing?" The question is, "Am I in Christ?" Our relationship with Jesus Christ will be the one thing which determines our eternal destiny.

Posted: 08/18/2002
URL: http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200208/20020818_heaven.html

(c) 2002 Alan Smith <alansmith@boone.net>. Used by permission. This devotional was reprinted from "Thought for the Day." <http://www.TFTD-online.com>

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