I’ve heard many people ask a similar question that often times is hard to answer or even comprehend for some Christians. The question is usually along the lines of, “How can someone who is in jail who did terrible things and repented go to Heaven while I haven’t done horrible things will go to hell for not believing in God?”
For years I struggled with an answer to this question but God showed me the answer through scripture. The reason is that person in prison has now paid twice for their sins.
First through earthly consequences, the person committed crimes, was punished and served their sentence or is serving their sentence. That is their physical judgment.
But what remains is their spiritual judgment and when one truly accepts Jesus Christ as their savior, it is He, Jesus who took on their spiritual punishment. God will know if they truly are remorseful and their repentance true, if God sees it as so then he will be forgiven.
So now that prisoner’s penalty has been paid on Earth and in Heaven.
Truth is we are all prisoners to sin and the only One who can change that is the Lord Almighty.
Some may say that it is unfair and I agree. But it is NOT unfair to you the person who rejects God.
It is unfair to God alone. We all don’t deserve salvation. It is a gift from God, if you reject it. You are choosing where you spend eternity.
I repeat YOU will chose where you spend eternity, so choose wisely.
Now a message to my Christian brothers and sisters, don’t blame others or worry about what others have done. Don’t focus on others sin remember what the Bible says.
Matthew 7:5, “5 You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Focus on how you can approve yourself in order to serve others.
Also I want to point out never think or tell someone who has gone to Hell, because the truth is you never know who spent their last moments confessing their sins to God.
We have the right to the Kingdom until our last dying breath.
Remember the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard…
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
That is a very powerful parable. We as Christians must remember this and just like the thief on the cross, salvation is available to the end.
Now back to those who haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, you may think, “Oh okay, I have time then.”
That may be true but you never know when your time on Earth will end, don’t risk it. Let Jesus in to your heart today.
Have a blessed week
https://biblehub.com/matthew/7-5.htm
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20%3A1-16&version=NIV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A39-43&version=NASB
The Good Word 
Very true. Salvation I have found is a coming to a belief that cannot be explained. It feels like love, a moment in its grasp is enough to spur me on to that next moment, but no amount of words or variations of phrases can ever explain its effect on the soul. Thank you!
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So it still stands that those who have no interest in Christianity/religion/spirituality and who die as atheists (according to your ideas put forth here) will be punished for that reason alone, despite being great people?
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That’s a good question, thank you for asking it.
Let me start off by showing you the Ten Commandments…
You shall have no other Gods but me.
You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
Respect your father and mother.
You must not commit murder.
You must not commit adultery.
You must not steal.
You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
You must not be envious of your neighbour’s goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.
We have all failed to keep at least some of those commandments. No matter if the offence is large or small we are all sinners and there for deserve judgment.
Here is a question to contemplate, when a person stands before a judge are they not judged for their crimes rather than the good that they have done?
A good judge has to hold them to the law no matter who they are. So it will be with God as well.
But the good news is God loved us so much that He sent Jesus who then took our place on the cross, if you believe in Him and accept His sacrifice than your spiritual penalty has been paid.
If you don’t then you must pay the penalty on your own.
I hope that helps.
Have a blessed day,
-Chris
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In that Christians have many different claims of what this god wants and how to be saved, how does one tell who has the “right” version? You can’t even convince each other. I was a Presbyterian and came to the conclusion that there was no evidence any gods. I read the bible and noticed that not one Christian can do what is promised in there.
As for being condemned to hell for not agreeing with whichever Christian wants to claim that they have the only right answer, that’s silly. Christians pick and choose what commandments they follow (they don’t end with the first 10, *all* of them are still in play per JC) Each Christian makes their god and religion in their own image, reflecting their personal fears and desires. I’m no more afraid of Chris’s version of his god than I am of some Muslim’s version of Allah.
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Hello,
Thank you for your comment.
I am going to begin to reply by focusing on your comments about theology than focus on your belief in the lack of evidence for God….
First off I want to say I am sorry if people have conflicting reports on how to be saved but the Bible is clear on the subject.
The Bible says Jesus died for our sins and if you accept this you are saved.
Romans 3:24
“24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”
Ephesians 2:8-9 New International Version (NIV)
“8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
That’s clear, if someone told you something different than they’re going against what the Bible states.
A true Christian doesn’t pick and chose commandments to follow. Anyone who is willingly living in sin and claiming to be a Christian is obviously not who they claim to be.
Now that doesn’t mean God expects perfection, this is where the grace comes in, Jesus paid the penalty, when a Christian sins they are supposed to repent to God and focus on doing better.
It seems you are putting a lot of weight in what other people do rather than focusing on the message in the Bible. Many people, not just Christians claim one thing than do the opposite or distort the truth to benefit their own lives or version of the World.
The Bible is clear on salvation and how to live your life.
Claiming that each Christian makes their own version of God or religion is quite the claim. There is estimated to be 2.2 billion Christians in the entire World, how many have you truly met and heard their views on God?
I certainly have not met even close to 2.2 Billion but in the many I have met and different churches I have attended despite ethnic, denominational and other small differences God remains the same. The One who created the World, saved His people numerous times, sent His son to die for our sins so that despite all of our faults He can reconcile with us.
I am not asking you to be afraid, I am just blogging about the Word of God from the Bible.
As far as evidence of God goes, I’ll counter your no evidence claim with the entire Universe as evidence.
If you look at the complexity of the Universe and how it truly works, everything falls perfectly into place in order for the universe to even function properly. Everything has a purpose, the idea that something so complicated could occur by random chance is absurd to me.
Look at how complicated one single cell is, just one. We have over 37.2 Trillion of them in our body. The idea that all of this is random doesn’t make sense to me.
Atheistic Science teaches that at some point nothing became something which is unscientific.
Having a creator that designed the universe to work exactly right makes much more sense to me than believing in randomness.
Truth is there is many scientists throughout history and even to this day that believe not just in science but in the God who created the science.
Either way you have to have faith that there isn’t a God as I have to have faith that their IS.
Truly I can’t give you the evidence you are looking for, I feel no one can, no amount would be enough for you because your heart is made up.
I hope that you are able to open it to God one day again.
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Reblogged this on The Good Word and commented:
Throwback Thursday from May 2019. This is one of my more controversial posts, in that it attracted some angry attention in the comments. Two comments I had to delete due to profanity. Nevertheless it also received a lot more positivity. I’ve learned a lot about soteriology since I wrote this, so I may have worded a few things different to respect everyone’s theological beliefs but other than that I think the message holds.
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Good word.
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