You Don’t Get to Heaven by Being a Good Person
God doesn’t grade on a curve when it comes to getting to heaven.
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.
Eph. 2:8-9 (ESV)
Eph. 2:8-9 explains that you are saved by grace, through faith.
- Grace means that we get to heaven by God’s gracious, free gift, not because we earned it.
Faith means that you get to heaven by believing in God and His way. It’s based on something that He did, not something that you did.
- Faith is trusting in God and what He did and not in yourself or something you did.
It’s not a result of works. This means that you don’t get to heaven based on your good or bad deeds in this life. That “no one may boast” means that you can’t take credit for it. You can’t get to the pearly gates and say: “Peter, let me in because I’ve been a good person!”
Note: This is not in the Bible. Peter is not at a pearly gate waiting for you. Even if he happens to be, the point is, you won’t be able to take credit for getting into heaven by your good deeds.
This might be a relief to some people but a frightening idea for others! The bad news is that you can’t get to heaven by being good. The good news is that even if you’ve lived a less than stellar life, or have done much worse, God did something for you so that you can get to heaven.
The good news is that even though you are not a good person (everyone has sinned), Jesus died for your sins. You can be forgiven of your sin because Jesus paid for the penalty of your sin. He paid for it with His death on the cross.