Once again, I cannot claim myself some sort of professional on certain subjects, I am still only learning as I go, but I think there is a big misconception about the Christain idea of Heaven.
For instance, believing all good people go to Heaven is about as silly as believing all good kids wake up to find presents under a pine tree on Christmas morning. It's just not how reality works, and Heaven too, is a real place. Allow me to explain further.
Heaven is not some giant golden city in the sky, where God acts as the angry bouncer waiting at the gates, letting only 'religious' people enter.
Heaven is not some secret club you have to be a certain way to get accepted into.
Heaven is not the "millionaire estates" at the end of the game of life, where you go if you think you did a good job.
Heaven doesn't work this way, for several reasons:
1. Anyone could do 'religious' things for very selfish reasons.
2. God made everyone who they are for a reason, so I believe He'd accept everyone for who they are, no matter what. If that were the standard, everyone would be allowed into Heaven.
3.* There are no "good" and "bad" people. Just people who do things we consider good or bad. I've yet to meet a person who did bad things because he believed bad things would come of it. If a person's goodness was what got them into heaven, then everyone would get into heaven--Either that, or no one would--as I believe God's standard would be perfection and no human soul could reach that bar, even with the advantage of an arms reach, and tippy toes. We all fall short.
So what is Heaven, and how does one really get in?
I often hear that the idea of Hell as the state of separation from God. If that were the case, then Heaven would be the opposite. Heaven would be a closeness to God, so in reality, all we have to do is get close to Him. The thing is, there are always misconceptions about who God is, which leads people to think He's not the kind of guy anyone would want to get close to. Satan is very tricky.
I once addressed a misconception about who God is, in an old blog entry, but I'll re-address it here. God is not some old guy with a long white beard and robe. I don't believe God has a purely tangible form, because God is love.
Now I should re-address another misconcpetion about love, which I wrote in an earlier journal entry, and again in my blog. The real point of that whole journal entry was to give a clearer picture of who God was. Like I said then: "I do not believe love causes people harm. Love is only a good thing, it is the very foundation of patience, kindness and forgiveness. Love does not hold envy or pride, it is not rude or self-centered." I later stated that it was people who cause people harm, not love.
So that is it, God is love, the source of all the good in the world. And Heaven--a closeness to God--would be a lot like living in the presence of love, and all the joy that comes with it.
I used to be bothered when people described falling in love as "Heaven on Earth," but now I think I get it. Falling in love is the only thing that comes close to what it would feel like to dwell in the presense of God. Can you imagine the feeling of falling in love forever, and being loved back 100% for eternity? A lot more appealing than old guys and bouncers and golden gates and roads and towers, right?
On the other hand, Hell is the separation from God--a distance from love. It would be like pure lonliness--the feeling that no one cares, and all the misery that comes with it--for an eternity. That's what will happen if you separate yourself from God.
So how does one get closer to God?
Pretty much the same way you get closer to any living being. You have to have a relationship with Him, and in order for that to even start, you must believe that there is a form of direct communication that was granted only by Jesus Christ's death on the cross, and then you have to accept Him for who He is. If you cannot believe Jesus granted us the ability to stand in God's presence by taking our sins for us, how can you even believe a relationship is possible? You can't have a relationship with someone you don't believe you can talk to. And then, as I stated before, God already accepts you for who you are, so the real deciding factor on whether or not you're going to Heaven lies with you. Believing that God should accept you into Heaven without you first accepting him, is like saying God should kidnap you and force you to share an intimate relationship with him. It doesn't work.
I once read that the definition of love was "giving the very best for someone, even if it means losing them." And who could possibly know this better than Love Himself? God gave us the beauty of freedom to make a choice, knowing that He may very well lose many of us. He loved us so much that he set us free, and now He's waiting patiently for the ones who are His to come back.**
Will you chose to come to Him?
If you have chosen to come to Him, how is your relationship with Him going? How often do you pray? How long would marriage last if you only talked to each other that often?
How many people do you know who do not have this direct relationship with their creator? Do you think they should face an eternity of misery? Keep in mind, not everyone who calls himself a Christain necessarily has this relationship. Suddenly there's a lot of people for you to try and share God with, isn't there?
Remember that winning an arguement never saved a soul. The best way to lead people to God is to form a relationship, show them love and introduce God to them along the way; Evangelism isn't about spreading a religion, its about loving the Hell out of people.
*Because of reason #3, I do not believe in a Pergatory. If there were a place between Heaven and Hell, where the good people were sent, than everyone else would be sent there. And in a sense, it would simply replace Hell.
**Sound familiar? "If you love something, let it go, if it returns, it's yours. If not, it was never yours in the first place."
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