Well, I never been to heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma…”1
From gospel tracts to billboards to evangelists looking me in the eye from my television, I have heard the question they assume is everyone’s biggest concern, “How do I go to heaven?” The answer typically follows a brief (emphasis on brief) description of what Jesus did on the cross and that if you will just pray this prayer right now and ask him into your heart you can be assured that you will be going to heaven when you die!
I always wonder what these new initiates into this down-and-dirty, fast-food gospel think heaven is going to be like. Certainly, they don’t want the cartoon version of us saints sitting on clouds, strumming harps, or worse, sitting through a 24/7 church service! They must be imagining a place that is like the life they know on Earth but without acne or traffic. I guess the best part of going to heaven in their mind is that they are not going to the “other place” we dare not speak of.
As I listen to people interviewed about a beloved parent or grandparent who died years ago, there is an accepted theology in our culture that they are in a “better place” and they are looking down on their loved ones, cheering them on. The unspoken understanding is that only really bad bad bad people go to hell and the rest of us go to heaven where we watch from the bleachers life back here on Earth. It raises the question; do I really want my dead family members watching me all the time? And how would that jive with heaven being a happy place if they see what their progeny is really up to now that they are gone? “She did what with my inheritance?!”
Seriously, smarter people than me have asked the same question about this “how to get to heaven” gospel and what it is producing.
I personally have become convinced that many people who believe in Jesus do not actually believe in God. By saying this I do not mean to condemn anyone but to cast light on why the lives of professed believers go as they do, and often quite contrary even to what they sincerely intend.”2
What we are observing is a gospel presentation with the wrong goal, so we are getting the wrong result. We have millions of souls trusting that saying a prayer will get them to heaven because Jesus died on the cross for their sins. Millions of these same souls have lost interest or faith in all this because the goal of just getting to heaven is not enough to sustain our hope and heart. The goal is too small. It works in the short term because it seems to speak to an immediate need; you don’t want to go to hell and here is someone who has taken care of that problem for you. Just thank him and live now without that fear and dread.
Sadly, as I have observed over my years of pastoral ministry, just having fire insurance after you die does nothing to answer the real questions of this life. Questions like, “Why am I here? Am I really unique or just an evolutionary accident? Is there really a loving God out there? Can I change? Is there any hope for me, my loved ones, or this sorry planet?”
The great news is that there are answers to these questions, and they are found in the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. The bad news is that the gospel of “how to get to heaven” won’t really get you started with Jesus and his teachings. That all appears to be optional. If you are the curious type or were fortunate to be discipled by a well-studied friend, you may begin to read and study the life and words of the Savior and grow in his grace and love. But it is not necessary to get your fire insurance, so thousands do not bother, to their great loss and peril.
The gospel that Jesus taught and preached rarely focused on going to heaven, although that was clearly one of the benefits of trusting what he taught. No, the gospel of Jesus was always an invitation to himself.
I invite you to walk through one of the Gospels and take note of what Jesus calls people to do. Nowhere will you find him inviting them to pray a prayer and accept him into their heart. What you will find, over and over again, is a simple invitation to follow him. Jesus was calling men and women to say no to self and say yes to him. A call to take up his name, his word, his mission, and go where he leads. It is a call to the whole person, a call to believe that Jesus is indeed God’s Son, my Lord, and worthy of my whole life!
The apostle Paul exhorts us to give our whole body, our whole person as a living sacrifice to God in response to the immensity of God’s grace and love as outlined in the previous 11 chapters.
Both Paul and Jesus give a big, bodacious ask! It is a gospel invitation worthy of the Lord and Jesus and worth following with all I’ve got. It is an invitation to love and follow this amazing Jesus, not just a quick prayer to go to heaven. Yes, heaven is one of the benefits, but the call is to a person…Jesus!
Back when the earth’s crust was still cooling, I attended college at a major university out west. The snarky guys of my fraternity would say the young women who seemed to be there to primarily find a husband were majoring in a “Mrs. degree”. Not a bad goal, but it could make the boyfriend wonder if her enthusiasm for him was more about the ring than his charming wit and good looks.
This brings us back to Willard’s quote about people who believe in Jesus to get them to heaven but don’t really trust God on a daily basis. Their goal was the ring, to get to heaven, not to get Jesus and the Father and the Spirit.
Jesus wants me! All of me. His call is a call to die to self and fully embrace, love, and trust him. Why? Because he laid down all his rights and protections and privileges as Lord of the Universe to find and save a sinner like me. His love has changed me. I now want him and if he is in heaven then that is where I want to be because he is there.
Jesus is the goal, the gift, the reward of the gospel! Heaven is a byproduct and a good one at that. But if you don’t know and love Jesus then why would you want to go to the place where he will be dominant and in charge?
I no longer invite people to pray a prayer to invite Jesus into their heart. Instead, I invite them to start following Jesus. You do that by reading and studying his word, spending time with his people, and doing the things you see Jesus do in the Gospels.
You see, the gospel is a life, not an answer to a question nobody is really asking. An eternal life that begins the moment you begin to trust and follow him and takes you right into eternity!
Which gospel do you want?
FOOTNOTES
1 Never Been to Spain, track #1 on Three Dog Night, Harmony, Dunhill, 1971
2 Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), 91.
This post originally appeared at: Loveless Faith — The Bonhoeffer Project
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