Repentance involves being broken before God and recognizing that your sin nailed Jesus to the cross. Repentance is a change of heart. Repentance is not just walking away from sin but it’s walking towards God in obedience.

I enjoy perusing the questions on yahoo answers and I see this question come up from time to time. Will God let me into heaven if I’m a good person? I decided to ask this question on yahoo answers to see what responses I would get. I received a lot of responses but decided to share 5 that represent the rest. Which of these responses do you think are correct according to the bible?

Matthew 13:45-46
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Besides obvious physical reasons (such as addiction to drugs) why do we often ignore a warning that could potentially save our lives? I think we get so caught up in the events of our daily lives that we put “warnings” on the back burner and hope everything will work out okay. Sometimes fear of an event will cripple us and make us unable to deal with a situation. Therefore we don’t allow ourselves to think about an issue, hoping that if it isn’t in our thoughts….maybe it doesn’t exist.

Why do we need to be saved? We need to be saved from the penalty of our sin, which is eternal separation from God in hell. Because God is Holy and Just He must punish sin. But He has provided a way of escape for us by sending Jesus to die for us. The bible says that if we place our faith in Jesus we will be saved. The salvation message is full of hope because we can have confidence that Jesus paid the debt that we owe on the cross. But to be saved you must believe and repent.

My response to:
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m a Christian, I believe in heaven and hell, and I would thouroughly enjoy heaven. But honestly, if I died and got there, simply to find out that great men like Ghandi and Einstien were not admitted simply because they were not Christian, while terrible men like Fred Phelps were simply because they did believe in the Christian God, I think I would excuse myself, and rather live somewhere else for eternity.”

Some people make the mistake of thinking that being justified means that they have to try to be a “better person”. They mistakingly think that if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds they will somehow find favor with God. This is an all or nothing situation. Either we obey everything in the law perfectly, or we are subject to the curse. There is no in between. Since it is impossible to live a perfect life and never sin, the only way to escape punishment from sin is to have faith in Jesus, who already took our punishment for us.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
–Jim Elliot

There are many that profess to know God but by their deeds they deny Him (Titus 1:16). Paul Washer gives an impassioned plea in this video. He says, “There’s only one thing that gave me a sleepless night; There’s only one thing that troubled me all through out the morning….”

Take the Good Person Test

God offers to save all who will accept Him and repent of their sins. He has opened up His arms and offered to protect us. Protect us from what? Protect us from being judged for our sins. If someone breaks the law in your local city and the person is brought to justice, that person must suffer the consequences of breaking the law. Just as there are laws in society, God has given us moral laws, that if broken will result in an eternity in hell.

To only focus on the love, joy, and peace that faith in God brings, is to overlook the huge problem that we face because of our sin. It is therefore only “half a gospel” to proclaim that someone should come to Christ because it will make them “happy”.

God made Jesus sin. He treated Him as if He had committed our sin, even though He never sinned. God punished Jesus for our sin and when we place our faith in Jesus, God looks at us and He sees the righteousness of Jesus. This is referred to as the doctrine of substitution.