“Will your Good Acts be Good Enough for Heaven?”

Imagine if you will, your at the gates of heaven anxiously waiting to go before God to find out where you will spend all eternity. You had a long life, with many hard knocks, but there were also many precious and joyous times. An angel greets  you and introduces himself. 

“Welcome, I’m Louis, I’m going to take you to St. Peter. He will present you before God for your final judgment of whether you were good enough to enter heaven." He takes you over to a very saintly looking man. “St Peter” St. Peter rises from a magnificent chair of gold and precious jewels and greets you with an embracing hug. 

“Welcome,” he nods to Louis and Louis takes a seat next to Peter’s seat. “This shouldn’t take long. What is going to happen is every action you committed while on earth has been logged into a video database, quite an impressive one I might say, as he smiles confidently. “We've taken all those actions assigned them a value, on the plus side for good acts, on the minus side for bad acts. Depending on how good or bad the act the higher or lower the points. We then take the your Lifetime Point Number or LPN evaluate it against our LAPS systems which means Lifetime Acts Point Scale and depending upon how you score your final destiny is determined. It is also important to know that the YMI (You Made It) score changes day to day it goes up if we happen to see a large number of people with high LPN scores arriving, down if we have had a large arrival of low LPN scores. Kind of like the old curve system you had in school. He gestures his hand towards a seat across from his and Louis’ “Please have a seat. God will be here momentarily, he will look over a brief biography of your life then view some selected videos of various moments in your life. It is important to tell you that though God won't view video of your whole life all the acts you committed since your birth to your death have been taken in to account”  

“Why a curve?” you ask..

“Oh we want to be fair and just. As you may remember from those days in school a curve allows for you to be fairly placed amongst your peers.” You think back to school and you remember there was always those one or two smart kids who always pushed the curve just high enough that you were just an average student. 'Heck' you begin to think 'A', 'C' just as long as I don't get an 'F' I'm in! You notice a magnificent throne off a little ways next to a desk made of gold and precious jewels. Off to the side of the door is a doorway adorn in gold and more precious jewels.

"Do you have anymore questions?" ask St. Peter

You think and then ask "Like how many points do you get for let's say telling the truth?" 

Oh not many, I think currently like 1 point for every hundread thousand truths, but boy if you told any lies that is 100,000 point on the minus side. Suddenly all those times you told your mom you didn't do it and the times you told your boss half truths, the times you told little white lies to your kids, your wife. Surly they all can't count against you. Suddenly the door large gold door opens and as it does St. Peter and Louis rise quickly from their seats and bow before the person who enters. You, unsure of what to do follow the actions of St. Peter and Louis and give your best bow for someone of greatness. 

St. Peter speaks “Almighty and glorious God, YOUR NAME HERE has been instructed on how his actions will be used in judgment against him and is ready for your final judgment.” You now realize you are before God Himself! St. Peter notices your nervousness as God seats himself on His throne. Peter whispers “Relax" 

A computer screen lifts out of the desk that God is seated at and you noticed your name appears with your picture, a series of notes and then what appears to be various videos start playing. God begins to tap his fingers. You noticed a him scrunch his nose as the video of those times you made illegal copies of software from work . Then off to the side you hear St. Peter whisper to Louis, “Oh I hope he makes it, he really seems to be a nice guy, but you know when Billy Graham came through last week, that YMI skyrocketed..”  You begin to sweat and your throat seems to have something the size of a grapefruit in it. 

Then you notice God smile as you see a video of the times you went to church for Christmas service. You think that's got to be worth a bunch of points as you start to breath a little sigh of relief. But God's smile soon turns to a frown as the video shows the many Sundays of you lying on the couch reading the Sunday paper. God gives you a long stare before returning His attention back to the screen.  God’s frown slowly turns to a look of pain and sorrow. A little pop-up window suddenly appears, it reads 'Current YMI - 12,984,478'  Below that it says "Current Child of God Score", but the numbers are still flashing first up then down, up again back and forth they go. You feel your body go stiff as God signals to St. Peter. St. Peter walks over to God and while standing by God blocks your view of the screen. Then  God whispers something in  to St Peter's ear and both of them let out long sighs and you see St Peter's shoulders slump. St. Peter gives you a long mournful look. You begin to weep as he slowly walks over to you. You hear him in a low soft voice,  “I'm Sorry” You are now trembling and wailing. “What’s wrong?” St Peter comes and sits beside you. “I’m sorry but you weren’t good enough. It was close but you fell short by 37 points.

You respond with a loud mournful cry “What do you mean I wasn’t good enough? You mean to tell me 37 points is going to keep me from going to heaven! I was a good person; I really really  tried to be a good person. I never hurt anyone or stole anything of great value, I went to church and gave to charities at Christmas. You saw that on the video right. I can’t remember doing anything that was truly bad. Peter responds, “I know, I know and when you gave at Christmas you gave very generously I might add, all your good deeds are there, but, you must understand you didn't do enough good deeds to offset the bad deeds”  St. Peter signals for Louis, “Louis will take you from here. I’m sorry, I truly am.

Your knees are wobbly as Louis takes you by the arm, and away from the gates of heaven and all its’ peaceful wonders. “Wait" you scream "I thought God was loving, can’t he give me some grace”? You hear St. Peter answer as you leave heaven to the doors of hell. “God is loving and he offered you grace many times in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, but you never accepted it”  

The above story can be taken in a lighthearted content with the exception of the last sentence. As you apply it to your life, the story becomes very serious. No doubt the most serious story you will ever face. How do you know whether you will be good enough? You might be thinking that God is a loving God and this story is just plain stupid, that a loving God knows what is truly in your heart. Your good character and good works alone will get you to heaven and that’s all that matters. Are you sure? Are you sure enough to risk heaven or hell on those assumptions? What are you assumptions based on? Do you want the decision of your eternity based on something you may or may not know? Do you positively know if you have been ‘good enough’?

If you truly believe God is a loving God and your entry into heaven is based upon how good you were, where does He draw the line of good versus bad?  If you base your eternal life on the good versus bad theory, there must be a line that divides ‘good enough’ and ‘not good enough’ Will God use scales that will weigh your good works versus your bad works? At what point in your life will you know you done enough good works to tip the scale to good enough? Is there a minimum amount of good works a person must do to be good enough for heaven? You don’t know? It may be more comforting to think that all one must be is a fairly good person but again how good is good enough? What is good anyway? Does it mean going to church, listening to your parents? Perhaps it means following the ‘Ten Commandments’ through out your life. Well if you ever disobeyed your parents, or told a lie you have broken one of the Ten Commandments and have sinned. The next argument for the good works theory is ‘God is forgiving and he will forgive me for a few sins.’ Yes, God is forgiving, but when do a few sins become to many sins for God to forgive?

For all have sinned; and fall short of God's glorious standard.  Romans 3:23 NIV

This verse is saying since all have sinned and fall short of His standard, even if we may have only sinned once. When we fall short of God’s standard we are separated from Him and eternal life.

            For the wages of sin is death¼Romans 6:23 NIV

If the wages of sin is death, and I’m separated from God and eternal life in heaven, how does one get to heaven? Jesus Christ. 

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” John 14:6 NIV

This is probably one of the most difficult statements for non-believers to accept as truth. Many want to pick and choose the god of their choice. Some and including myself at one time molded a god to my image of what he should be. I would mold him to what I thought was right and wrong to justify my actions. Whether it is through Buddhism, Hinduism, or your own god you are on the wrong path. I’m not going to defend Christianity versus other religions in this writing; I suggest you visit www.carm.org for information on non-Christian religions and/or cults. I am hoping to make you seriously think if good works will earn you your way to heaven.

If you’re still not convinced that good works will earn your way to eternal life I’ll do my best to explain in an easy simple manner the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A short to the point explanation of the Gospel is found in Bible in the book of Ephesians in the New Testament.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one man can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

Grace is a gift from God. A gift is something that is free. You, I, or anyone cannot earn a gift.  The way to receive a gift is by accepting it from the one who offers it to you. God offers you the gift of salvation, deliverance from the penalty of death for your sins, through His son Jesus Christ.

The Gospel is detailed in first four books of the New Testament in the Bible. Please read at least one, I suggest the Gospel of John. If you can, obtain a life application Bible it contains footnotes explaining what the Bible is saying. I also recommend either the New International Version  (NIV) or New Living Translation (NLT). These two translations are much easier reading then the King James Version.

If you feel this writing has moved you to the point of realizing goods works will not get you into heaven and are ready to take the step of accepting God’s gift I ask you to say this prayer.

God I know I’m sinner, and that because of these sins I fall short of your glory. I ask for your forgiveness of my sins. I acknowledge that Jesus Christ is your Son and he paid the debts of my sins by dying on the cross. I accept you gift of salvation and ask Jesus Christ into my life to be my personal Lord and Savior. – Amen

If you said that prayer and meant it from the depths, of your heart and soul, congratulations your separation from God has been removed! You have eternal life! You have been saved! You have been Born Again!

If you accepted God's gift of salvation I like to know. So I may pray for you

If you did not accept God's gift I would like to know why not. 
Are there questions you have or something else that is stopping you?

Please be assured, I will not respond with unsolicited e-mails unless you specifically request a response. The BACPage's is a place where I want others to learn and know about Jesus Christ in a comfortable format and not have to worry about pestering e-mails trying to push you into a decision you are not ready to make.

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Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.
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