What Does It Really Take To Get To Heaven? | Teen Ink

What Does It Really Take To Get To Heaven?

August 11, 2009
By Ricky Heuermann BRONZE, Saint Peters, Missouri
Ricky Heuermann BRONZE, Saint Peters, Missouri
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

To go to Heaven, we need to think about why God put us here in the first place. He wants us to be stewards and do His will. Genesis 1:26 states, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God gave us a responsibility when He created us, and that responsibility is to do His will. If we do His will, we will go to Heaven.
John 3:16 is one of the most popular Bible verses because it tells us very clearly how to get to heaven. It says, “For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will never die but have eternal life.” God gave us His only Son because He loved the people He created. We need to believe and appreciate Jesus and the sacrifice He made in order to get to Heaven.
In Matthew 19:16-26, there is a story about a rich young man with a desire to go to Heaven. He asked Jesus what he needs to do in order to obtain eternal life, and Jesus told him to follow the Ten Commandments and to love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 19:20-21 says, “The young man said to Jesus, ‘All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?’” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” The rich man cried because he owned a lot of property. In Matthew 19:23, Jesus told His disciples that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. The disciples then asked Him, “Who can be saved”. Jesus responded in Matthew 19:26. “With people this is impossible; with God all things are possible.” In this story, Jesus is telling us to put Him as our highest priority. We need to sacrifice ourselves for Him, just as He did for us. Many rich people tend to focus on physical possessions instead of God. This is why Jesus said, “With people this is impossible”. It is impossible for someone full of greed to go to Heaven. The rich man in the story was rich in possessions, but He had a desire for God and a desire for eternal life. This is why Jesus said, “With God all things are possible.” Anything is possible as long as God is in your life. The Bible is telling us that God must be in our daily lives for us to get to Heaven.
Many people ask themselves the simple question, “What is love?” Love is freely giving oneself for the good of another. 1 John 3:16 proves this. It states, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” Jesus showed us the ultimate act of love when He died on the cross. To gain eternal life in Heaven, we need to bring out the Jesus in ourselves by “laying down our lives for our brothers”. If we have God in our lives, we have love because God is love. We cannot go to Heaven without love.
Jesus’ last words are stated in Matthew 28:19-20. “Go and make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded, and I will be with you until the end of the age.” Jesus is saying that He will be with us forever in Heaven if we take up the role of the disciples and spread the faith.


The Bible gives us many hints and clues telling us what it takes to get to Heaven. First and foremost, we must perform God’s will because that is why He put us here in the first place. We also need to believe in and appreciate Jesus because of the sacrifice He made for us on the cross. To achieve eternal life, we must also keep God in our daily lives because with Him all things are possible, even going to Heaven. If we want to go to Heaven, we must love because it brings out the Jesus in us. The last advice Jesus gave us was to spread and defend the faith. If we listen to the advice the Bible gives us, we will have what it takes to get to Heaven.


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