Don't know if it is about getting older or just being curious but books on Heaven seem to draw me more and more these days or years. Just finished A BETTER COUNTRY "Preparing for Heaven" by Dan Schaeffer. Great thoughts and questions and answers about it all. Maybe even too many and too much to actually digest all at one reading.
Towards the end he talks about who goes and who does not go and the whys and wherefores of that. I believe, as a Christian, and student of God's Word, that there is only one way - a narrow way - and that is by faith in Jesus Christ and His grace through His death and resurrection that can and does get us there.
Again my old favorite, C. S. Lewis stated it wisely well. "There are only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God 'Thy will be done' and those to whom God says...'Thy will be done.' All that are in hell chose it. Without that self-choice (free will) there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened."
In Revelation when it foretells of all the horrific things that will come upon the world wreaking havoc and destruction it says more than once "and still they did NOT repent." Free will allows us the choice to refuse to believe or go to heaven. I never forgot a TWILIGHT ZONE featuring a "ne're-do-well" villain who killed without mercy or reason, used women for his own amusement only, drank, gambled and seemed to enjoy every minute. One night he got shot and when he woke up a dapper gentleman told him that he was there to take care of his wound, which healed immediately, and providing him with whatever he asked. Needless to say - true to form - he had women, money, gambling until he tired of it all. In his exhaustion he asked his gentleman provider why such a man who lived the life he lived could have ever deserved to be let in the doors of heaven. The ending of that particular show still rings loud and clear. "Why my dear man, whatever made you think you went there, not at all. You are in the other place." With only seconds left you could see in his eyes the realization of what an eternity of getting what we want would actually be.
So again I say I'm happy to be a firm believer in CHRIST ALONE as the reason why we get to go to heaven rather than to be on our own and making the selfish choices we would make without Him.
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