If Jesus took all sin into His heart and died, how did He go to Heaven?

Great question! The truth is Jesus never sinned. He (amazingly!) took the sins of the world upon himself as part of God’s plan to save us from being separated from Him forever.

 

Do you remember that in the Old Testament days, animals were sacrificed to pat the price for sin? The blood  of the sacrificed animals was traded to cover the sins of men. The animals never sinned, but were sacrificed in exchange for human sin.

 

Animal sacrifices, however, could never be enough to fully cover human sin. God’s plan required blood from a perfect, sinless person. This is because our perfect and holy God cannot be anywhere near sin. Of course, it was impossible to find a perfect and holy person since we all have sinned and fallen short of the perfection God requires. So, God sent His One and Only Son to be that perfect, sinless sacrifice in our place. 

 

Jesus took our place and endured the punishment that we all deserve, even though He had never sinned. Because of His sacrifice, God was able to us as if we were perfect and sinless like Jesus. And even though Jesus accepted all our sin onto Himself, He was still perfect and sinless! That is why Jesus was able to ascend into Heaven and is alive today at the right hand of God.

 

This is why we now can be sure of having eternal life with God in Heaven, because of Jesus’ sacrifice. Of course, we still have a part to do … though it’s actually pretty easy: You simply have to accept Jesus  as your Savior and accept His gift of grace!

 

Why is Jesus waiting to come back?

Wow! That is a great question! The truth is because of His great mercy. Jesus is giving us all a chance to be rescued from our sin and to come to Him before He returns.

You see, when sin came into this world through the act of disobedience by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they ate the forbidden fruit, it opened up the door for Satan to enter and create all sorts of chaos and to try and disrupt God’s unstoppable plan. Satan has tried so hard, and for a long time, to get us all to turn away from God by tempting us with all sorts of bad things! And, because God gave us all free will, we’ve made a mess of this world. The world is full of bad people, terrible situations and evil temptations.

The good news is that, in order for us to have eternal life with Jesus, we have to admit our sins, believe that Jesus is who He says He is and then choose to follow Him. We have to turn from all those bad things and bad people and accept Jesus’ gift of grace. If we don’t, we’re not going to enjoy the salvation that Jesus gives us and the eternal life He promises.

But, make no mistake. Jesus will someday come back and He will defeat Satan once and for all. But, He loves us and wants to give us every opportunity to come to repentance and to choose Him as our Savior before He does return. That’s why He is waiting.

What really matters? I don’t need religion or facts or verses or the cross, but what matters the most about coming to church?

Wow, what an awesome question!!! I remember being your age and watching my friends go to church and sometimes even going with them and wondering why. I mean, at the time, it seemed so boring and I didn’t understand the whole point. The preacher just read out of the Bible and he went on and on about stuff I didn’t get … it sounded like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons. In fact, it kind of felt like another day at school! But, now that I’m older and have gotten to know who Jesus Christ is, I’ve realized that the thing that matters most about coming to church is your relationship with Jesus. I know, I know … you said you don’t need religion; neither do I! But, what I do need is a Savior who forgives me for all the mistakes I make! I don’t want a bunch of churchy rules … just someone who can forgive me and say, “I love you,” even when I do something so bad that I think it’s unforgivable. I needed someone who loved me when I felt I was unlovable. And Jesus is the only one who can do that. You said you don’t need facts or verses and that’s all fine with Jesus, too (maybe when you get older you’ll want to know some cool facts or be able to recite a memory verse!). Jesus doesn’t want you to just know facts or spout out a Bible verse like a parrot without knowing what they mean. That means nothing to Him either. Jesus doesn’t really even care that you learn anything! Of course, He’d love for you to learn about Him and His life. But, He would rather have a personal one-on-one relationship with you where you can tell Him all your fears or all your frustrations or all your anger. Or, on the flip side, be able to tell Him all the fun things you’ve learned or the great things that have happened to you! He longs to hear from you so much! The bottom line is: Jesus loves you, even when you think He doesn’t. Jesus wants so badly for you to love Him. He wants nothing more than to have a personal relationship with you. Do you want to know the best part about Jesus? He will love you even if you don’t love Him. He will wait for you and when you decide that Jesus is what really matters and ask Him to come into your life, He will run to you! I like coming to church because it is a great way to show your love for Jesus with your friends and family. It’s a way that we can all worship together and thank Jesus as a group for what He did for us. Just recently, my oldest son told me he didn’t want to come to church anymore. He just didn’t see the point of it. Do you know what I told him? I said, “Okay. I don’t want to force you and push you away from Jesus.” I also told him that when he’s ready to come back, we’ll be more than happy to bring him. But, more importantly, Jesus will be right there ready to embrace him. Guess what? Two weeks later, he decided to come to church again and even joined a Youth Group! He also hangs out with the high school kids after church when they all meet for lunch and enjoys being with “Christian” teenagers. He’s been asking me a lot of questions and I’ve answered them. I’m not pushing him at all and allowing him to meet Jesus on his own. And that is the great thing about Jesus. He will meet you where you are. You don’t have to be perfect to allow Jesus into your life. You don’t have to be good to have a relationship with Jesus. Remember what the Bible teaches us in Romans 5:8, “This is how God demonstrated his love for us; while we were still sinners, God sent His Son to die for us.” He didn’t wait for us to become good or perfect. So, to sum this all up and put it into a one word answer: What’s it all about and what matters the most? Jesus.

Why do we get baptized?

That is a very awesome question! First off, let me just say - because sometimes folks are confused by this - that you do not need to be baptized in order to be saved or to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Being saved is a decision you make by admitting you are a sinner, believing Jesus is who He says He is and choosing to accept Jesus into your heart.

Baptisms are a very public and symbolic way of sharing with others your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior and to follow him with your life and heart. The practice of baptizing people with water was first shown in the Book of Matthew, the first book in the New Testament. In Chapter 3, we get introduced to a very strangely described person named John the Baptist. He is really a different kind of person in the way he dresses and in the stuff he eats! But, he is baptizing people in the River Jordan. He says it’s for repentance of their sins. (At the end of that chapter, he baptizes Jesus, who while sinless, gives us a model we follow!)

In the Book of Acts, the fifth book of the New Testament, Peter (one of Jesus’ original disciples) commands us to, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2:38)

Again, we see that the act of baptism is a symbolic way to repent by “washing away your sins” and then rising again (just like Jesus did when He was resurrected) and walking in the newness of life that Jesus has to offer. Very cool - no doubt!

I wonder if I will go to Hell

I want to reassure you of what the Bible and God has to say about hell. And I know that you have said that you have accepted Christ as your Savior so I am speaking from that perspective.

First when you mention a fear of going to hell it makes me think you are questioning your assurance of salvation. I think it is common for us to question our salvation because we sometimes go by our feelings, we know we are sinners and that we really don’t deserve to go to heaven. The truth is, if making it to heaven was up to us then you would have reason to fear but fortunately God through Jesus provides the way to heaven. Rather than go by our feelings we need to look at God’s Word for our assurance. Here are some verses that we can trust:

John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast.”

1 John 5:11-13 “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

These are just a few verses that give us confidence/assurance in what God has for us. If you use a concordance (some Bibles even have concordances in the back of them) you can look up more verses by going to salvation, saved, or Savior; you will find several.