If a hockey player gives another player a cheap shot, then he will get a penalty and have to sit out for a couple of minutes. After the penalty is over, he has paid for his foul and is free to continue playing. Another example is someone who commits a crime. That person has to go to jail to pay for their bad decisions, but then they get to go free. The point is that there is a penalty for choosing to do the wrong thing, and in these cases, it is possible to pay for those ‘mistakes’ yourself and then your slate is wiped clean. Those mistakes are called ‘sins’ in the Bible.
Following these examples, and since Heaven is perfect, you would have to pay the penalty foreverythingyou have ever done wrong to be perfect and get in, but that, of course, is impossible. Another alternative is to get someone else to pay for your sins. But that person
would have to be a better person than you or else it wouldn’t be a fair exchange, and then we run into the same problem as above—how good is good enough?
God knows that we can’t do this on our own, and that is where Jesus comes in. The nutshell version is that God sent His own son, Jesus, down to the earth (celebrated by Christians at Christmas) to help us out. Because of who Jesus is (for more on who Jesus is,
watch this video), He was able to live a perfect life, which made Him a perfect substitute for us. Not only did Jesus say it was okay to punish Him for our sins, but He also said it was okay to punish Him foreverybody’ssins. As a result, He was brutally tortured and executed by crucifixion (celebrated by Christians at Good Friday). But that meant your slate was wiped clean because Jesus took the punishment for you and ended up dying for you.
But the story doesn’t end with Jesus dying. If Jesus simply died, that wouldn’t prove anything except that He was a very compassionate person. God raised Him back to life three days later (celebrated by Christians at Easter) to prove He was the son of God, that sins can be forgiven, death is not the end of the story and eternal life in Heaven is real and possible. Since the resurrection of Jesus is crucial, watch this video to understand that event even more:
Why believe in the Resurrection of Christ.
So, Heaven is not for the “good; ”it’s for the “forgiven,” That forgiveness is a free gift from God that is available to everyone. This is why Christians talk about the ‘good news,’ because Jesus paid the price for you and me so that even today, we can be absolutely assured of going to heaven after we die. But like with any gift, you still have to accept it.
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