No matter who you are, as long as you love God, you'll deserve to go to Heaven? Do bad people go to Hell even if they love God? Wouldn't it be useless to repent since all the damage has already been done?
2006-08-15 17:05:27 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Nobody deserves heaven. That's the point of Christ dying to redeem us.
As far as it not mattering how bad a person you are, that depends on what you mean.
I believe that redemption is available to everyone - no matter what they've done. Look at Saul, who persecuted Christians, and became the Apostle Paul.
Paul, himself, did not take his past lightly. He acted in good conscience, but his actions were ungodly. He was forgiven, but he couldn't undo the damage, and he certainly didn't promote the idea that you can be a Christian and do whatever you want.
Being a Christian means being "Christ-like." It's a process. And a messy one, sometimes. Some people have a lot of baggage to overcome in their walk. There is grace, but John warns about making sure we "walk in the light." The idea is that when we fail, we get up and keep walking. Not that we walk perfectly or that we walk however and wherever we want. We walk "in the light."
Romans chapter 6 is a good explanation of grace and the abuse of it. Grace is not a license to sin. Grace covers our failure on the road to becoming mature and complete. Grace does not cover our abandonment of the road to pursue sin.
2006-08-15 17:18:28 · answer #1 · answered by Contemplative Chanteuse IDK TIRH 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
I'm a religious Christian, a Catholic, in fact. Our chance to go to heaven at all was a gift from Jesus, made possible by his dying for our sins to reconcile us to the Father. We can't just earn our way to heaven by being good, we need a savior, because God doesn't deserve to have us offend him and he doesn't owe us anything, for sure not eternal happiness. We can throw the gift away by our behavior, though.
(BTW, any Catholic who thinks we get to heaven because of good works is not well informed. Make no mistake about what the Church teaches.)
That said, if you say you love God but you're a really bad person, that makes no sense. If you really love God, you will be making a sincere, good effort to be good. You will still sin at times, but someone who loves God will either avoid major sins, or will repent promptly and truly try not to sin so much in the future. A really bad person, consistently, doesn't really love God.
Whether bad people go to hell is up to God, because only he really knows their soul. It's possible he will be extra merciful if they were bad truly out of ignorance or being crazy. But there definitely are people who are very bad and not sorry and are going to hell. Saying you love God counts for nothing. You have to live it.
It's NEVER useless or too late to repent, because even if you repent on your deathbed, if you are sincere, God will forgive you. But you never know, you might die suddenly, and anyway, why not just live a life of loving God? He set up his "rules" because he knows what's really best for us, he DOES want our happiness.
Don't take a chance living a sinful life and saying you'll say you're sorry with your last breath -- you may not get that chance, and it will be awful to go to hell for eternity.
2006-08-15 17:19:15 · answer #2 · answered by catintrepid 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When Paul wrote Romans he addressed a problem that had arisen in the church. People were telling themselves that it was a good thing to continue in sin because the more they sinned the more they could prove God's grace by asking forgiveness. Paul knew that this is not what God intended when he said that salvation was by grace--a free gift given by God to those who would repent. So Paul wrote: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death,....knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." Romans 6"1,2,4a,6
The point being that, if a person becomes a Christian he ought to live a life that can be identified with Christ. If he continues in the same sinful life that he was living before then it's doubtful that he ever submitted to God in the first place.
Also, it's doubtful that a "bad person" would love God. People who live blatantly sinful lives usually hate God because God points out their sin to them. Again, an unrepentant person has no hope of entering Heaven because they've never given up their sin to God.
When a person repents, he is changed into a new person. II Corinthians 5:17 says "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." You're right in the sense that a person who is still in his unforgiven state cannot see God but a person who has been forgiven is no longer the same person in God's eyes. He is totally new. A completely different human being. One who God can now look on and have a relationship with.
If you, or anyone else, wants a relationship with God then, if you ask, God will do everything. All you have to do is give up your life to Him...He will do everything else that needs to be done.
2006-08-15 17:45:06 · answer #3 · answered by Ellen J 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Christianity teaches you to be like God. Kind, Understanding, Patient, Giving, etc. Not to be a drug addict whore who kills people on the weekends for fun. I don't see how doing that would get you to heaven no matter what religion you claim to be.
Christianity teaches Salvation is the only way you can get to heaven. Catholics believe in good works getting you to heaven. Not sure what the rest believe. But I guess that's all you were asking.
2006-08-15 17:13:31 · answer #4 · answered by wldntulike_2know 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The question is a paradox to me, as a person who truly loves God couldn't logically be a very evil person. Good people who love God may screw up, but if they have sought to live a Christian life, any sins are likely to cause them to repent quickly (as possible) anyway.
2006-08-15 17:12:20 · answer #5 · answered by thenextvinnie 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Loving God and making a profession of faith in Jesus are two different things.
Faith in Christ gets Christians to heaven.
The thief on the cross made a profession of faith in Jesus.
Worldly consequences for his crimes still required him to die on a cross next to Jesus.
But because of the thief's faith (literally a death-bed conversion) Jesus assured him that he would be in paradise with Him that same day.
You'll find the story-text in Luke 23:39-43
2006-08-15 17:14:05 · answer #6 · answered by Bob L 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I consider myself a religious christian, I believe it doesn't matter how bad a person WAS,(not are) before he accepted Jesus as his personal saviour.
I don't believe a person can say they have accepted Jesus into their heart and continue to do whatever he pleases to satisfy himself.
2006-08-15 17:17:30 · answer #7 · answered by marvs36 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No!!
If you truly love God, you will do His will, and obey it.
You will also accept His sacrifice (jesus).
2006-08-15 17:13:43 · answer #8 · answered by gracefully_saved 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
some do some don't that's why there are so many church's
2006-08-15 17:11:37 · answer #9 · answered by ? 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋