by Pastor Patrick Cho

In our home, we have a typical bedtime routine with our kids before putting them down for the night. Especially with our older one, generally, we’ll read through a Bible account together, sing a worship song, and pray. We conclude with bedtime kisses (I usually get ten while Christine gets a hundred… I still don’t see how that’s fair). A couple years ago, I remember that instead of going to one of our usual books, I ended up talking to my daughter about Heaven and Hell. I know this is a weighty subject right before bedtime, but for some reason that I can’t recall, the topic came up.

I remember asking her, “Why do you think people go to Hell?” Her reply was, “Because they do bad things.” I was curious so I continued to question her, “And what kinds of people do you think get to go to Heaven?” Her response was expected. “People who do good things.” And she started going on and on listing examples of good behavior like listening to parents, telling the truth, picking up your toys, etc. She was convinced that if people were good enough and did enough good things, they would be allowed to go to Heaven.

Isn’t it interesting that this is the way we are naturally inclined to answer? Even to a three or four year old, it made perfect sense that bad behavior should be punished and good behavior should be rewarded. Why shouldn’t good people be allowed into Heaven if bad people are sent to Hell? I think I’ll always remember the confused look on her face when I told her this isn’t exactly the way things work.

The Lord provided a wonderful opportunity to explain to her that our sin is not just limited to the things that we do. It is a condition of the heart. We do the bad things we do because of the “badness” of our hearts. I suppose good people would be allowed into Heaven, but the problem is that there aren’t any good people. Because of our sin condition, ultimately no one is good before God. Even if we could bank on our goodness to get us into Heaven, every person would utterly fail. Our sin taints everything that we do so that we have nothing worthy to bring before the Lord. If not in our direct actions, our motives and goals are not God-glorifying. We seek to be better people by our behavior. We may even be noble enough to seek the good of others. But it is only by faith that we can be pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6). I explained to my daughter that it isn’t about trying to be good enough because she can’t be good enough. Her sin will always get in the way.

This is the reason we need to rely upon God to save us from our sins. Our hope must come from outside ourselves. He sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay the punishment for our sins. He died so that we could have life. If we have any hope of going to heaven, it will only be because we trusted in what Jesus did for us, and not in the things we tried to do on our own. We place our faith in Him – in who He is and in His death and resurrection – so that we can have the hope of eternal life (cf. Eph. 2:8-9).

This encounter was just one of many reminders that even in the sincerity of our hearts, we can be completely wrong. Things can make total sense to us about the way we are living and what we are striving for. We might have noble intentions and the best motives. But in the end, without Christ, we have no hope of being in good standing with God.

I praise God that He has revealed His will to us in His written Word and doesn’t communicate it to us in some subjective way through impressions and feelings. He doesn’t just tell us to go and do what we think is right. Instead, He tells us clearly what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what is error, to guide us down the unmistakable road we ought to walk.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that the natural mind cannot understand the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14). It is only by the grace of God that we can even think the way we ought according to the truth. We are blinded by our sins in our own understanding. We need God to illumine our darkened hearts to the truth. Instead of having us trust in our own intuition, He calls us to trust in His truth. Left to herself, my daughter cannot know the severity of her sin and the desperate condition of her soul. This is why I strive to point her continually back to the Word of God so that she can think rightly not only about the problem in her heart, but also the solution God provided in Jesus Christ. And as she grows I pray that the Lord will help her to see the amazing grace He offers to sinners who deserve judgment and that by grace her heart will respond in faith and thanksgiving.