Who Will Go to Heaven?

Of course, the question of who will go to heaven is not for you or me to decide. That decision belongs to God. But we have some clues in the Bible.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" (Matt.5:8). We, then, must look at some other Bible verses to try to understand just what Jesus meant by this statement.

Jesus also said that unless a man is born again (born spiritually) he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3).

It is therefore not enough to be only living a good life. Neither is it enough to have mouthed a prayer of accepting the Holy Spirit into one's heart unless that heart is sincere. Unless that heart is pure.

It is therefore essential that when one makes a commitment to Jesus Christ that he also be willing to follow Him, to give up his worldly ways, and go forward in the spiritual life. He can no longer sit on the fence, because if he does, he will find the fence most uncomfortable. He belongs neither to the world nor to Jesus. He must make a decision. "Choose you this day whom you will serve" as Joshua so aptly put it long ago (Josh.24:15).

Those who think they are first in the kingdom of God may end up last, and those who think they are last may end up first (Matt.19:30). The condition of the heart may not be evident to those around them, but God knows our every thought. Jesus said that even some who have had great ministries will wonder why they did not make it. They did what they wanted instead of God's will. They will tell Jesus that they prophesied, cast out devils, and did great works in His name, but Jesus' answer will be, "I never knew you; away from Me you evildoers" (Matt.21-23). In other words their hearts were interested only in their ministry, not in giving the glory and honour to the Lord Jesus Christ.

If our heart is pure before God, we will have no self-glory or self-exaltation in what we do for Him; we will consider ourselves a love-slave to Jesus Christ, a humble servant striving to understand what the Lord wants us to do.

Yes, our sin has been forgiven by the death of Jesus Christ once we accept Him as our Saviour, but if we wish to have a pure heart before Him we will also make Him our Lord. Lord of our everything we are and everything we have. He must be Lord of all.

The Bible calls those who say they are Christian but really love the things of the world "carnal" (Rom.8:7), or "double-minded" (James 1:8). If we are to make Jesus Christ Lord, then the world, the flesh, and the devil must be put under our feet. We must look to Jesus and to no one or nothing else.

So while we are not the ones to decide who will be going to heaven, let us take some advice from the Bible and make certain our heart is pure before Him. No acting. No hypocricy. We may fool man, but we cannot fool God.