By Saverio, Italy
Some Christians believe that as long as they accept the Lord Jesus’ salvation of the cross, verbally acknowledge the Lord and believe in Him in their hearts, then they are saved and will be able to enter the heavenly kingdom. There is also a biblical basis for this belief, which is: “That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Romans 10:9–10). They therefore believe even more strongly that those who are saved by faith can enter into the heavenly kingdom. But there are some Christians who remain confused, and they think that, seeing as we are capable of becoming hot-headed and losing our tempers at people every day, so much so that we are not even able to show our family members tolerance and patience, and we are capable of telling lies to deceive others in our everyday lives, can people such as this who live in sin enter into the kingdom of God? Let’s fellowship about this topic today.
As all who sincerely believe in the Lord know, in our belief in the Lord we must base everything we do on God’s words, for the word of God is the foundation of our faith in God and the benchmark by which we shall enter the heavenly kingdom. So what does God say about us getting into the heavenly kingdom? The Lord Jesus said, “Not every one that said to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of My Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). “Truly, truly, I say to you, Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant stays not in the house for ever: but the Son stays ever” (John 8:34–35). “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). According to God’s words, we can ascertain that people who just believe in the Lord in their hearts, who verbally pray to the Lord but who commit sins frequently every day cannot enter the kingdom of God. Because God is holy, absolutely no sinner is permitted to enter His kingdom, and this is decided by God’s righteous disposition. We are therefore able to reflect on ourselves in the light of God’s words to see whether or not we meet the criteria to enter the heavenly kingdom.
