In this world you may often receive the popular advice, ‘You have to do what you believe is right for you’.  We may even be told that this is the best basis for all decision-making.

Now this advice may work in many areas of life.  For example, it may be useful in choosing your education, career and entertainment.

However, deep down we all know that this advice doesn’t work in all decisions.  Just because you believe a way to be right, doesn’t make it right.  I could sincerely believe one plus one equals three, but as soon as I start to implement my faulty mathematics in the real world of fields like finance, mechanics or architecture, reality will set in. Banks will not do business with me, motor vehicles I make won’t start, buildings I build will fall over.

And it’s the same with entering into heaven. I may sincerely believe that the way to heaven is by being nice to those around me. But I have to remember heaven is not my heaven. It’s God’s heaven. Thus it is the real God who dictates what is the way into the real heaven. And if I choose the wrong way, then what the Bible says will come true: “There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

So what is the right way to heaven? It is certainly not by being a good person. Why? because none of us are good. The Bible says:  ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’ (Romans 3:10). And if we take a look around us and at our own hearts, we can easily see that what the Bible says about our sinfulness is true. We are all people who have a problem with sin that we just can’t seem to shake.

So what is the right way to heaven? God’s advice is that you trust that his son Jesus Christ died as payment for your sins. Jesus says: ‘For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day’ (Joh 6:40).

So Jesus is definitely the reason why Christmas is so wonderful. Christmas is all about God’s son being born into the world so that many people could enter heaven if they would only trust in him, rather than trust in their own thinking.

Have you believed in Jesus’ death for your sins so that you will enter  heaven?

Joel Radford, Preaching Elder.