WANTING TO GO TO HEAVEN IS NOT THE SAME THING AS WANTING TO FOLLOW JESUS
During my college years I was trained in the Evangelism Explosion program at a large midwestern church. We went door to door and asked: “If you died tonight, and God asked ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’, what would you say?”. A series of simple questions followed, designed to avoid rabbit trails and to keep the person on the topic of getting to heaven. If they wanted to go to heaven, you told them they could get there by believing in Jesus, who died for their sins. Then you asked, “Would you like to pray with me to believe in Jesus right now so you can know that you have eternal life?”
One door opened to reveal a somewhat disheveled woman. A child was crying somewhere in the house and a dog was barking and her living room looked like a tornado had hit it. My trainer overlooked all of this and painstakingly went through the questions. The woman patiently answered ‘correctly’. When asked if she would like to pray to be saved, she said ‘yes’ and repeated the prayer after him. She then quickly closed the door and went back to her chaotic morning.
As we walked away, my trainer said, “Another soul won to Christ! Heaven is rejoicing!”
This 19-year-old wasn’t rejoicing. I was furious and proceeded to tell the man he was kidding himself if he thought that woman had truly trusted Christ. “She was trying to get rid of us!” I snapped. “Do you think she has any intention of continuing in her faith? Of ever coming to your church?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She expressed faith in Christ in that moment, so she’s going to heaven. What she does from here on out doesn’t matter.”
I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe he said that with a straight face.
I always found it confusing that in evangelicalism, people who showed no evidence of ongoing ‘faith in Christ’ could still claim they were going to heaven because they raised their hand after a sermon, went to the front of the church during an altar call, or prayed the “sinner’s prayer” at age three. That moment of faith, they were told, would get you into heaven. Continuing loyalty and obedience to Christ was optional. I have never been able to accept that.
I once had a professor who assigned affirmation/denial papers. He would give us a topic and we had to list our beliefs about it (“I affirm that X is true about Y…”) and what we rejected about the topic (“I deny that X is true about Y…”). This exercise helped us draw a general boundary around a subject so we could tweak the details and develop deeper thought later.
When I became a pastor, I went through this exercise regarding ministry (without writing the papers). Initially I spent a lot of energy on ‘denials’ (things I disliked about evangelicalism) and the notion that Christianity is about getting people out of hell and into heaven was at the top of my list of dislikes.
However, you don’t build churches around dislikes and denials. Affirmations define how you build the body. Affirmations define us, what we stand for and what we seek to accomplish.
I deny that Christianity is primarily about one’s eternal destiny in heaven or hell.
I affirm that Christianity is primarily about following Jesus.
That belief affects how we see the mission of the church and how we talk about Christianity. Someone saying ‘yes’ to the question “Do you want to go to heaven?” is not necessarily a ‘yes’ to “Do you want to follow Jesus?”.
These are two different questions. The second question is the more important, but it seems that we hardly ever ask it.
Jesus and the apostles never asked people if they wanted to go to heaven.
They laid out the claims of Jesus and called people to follow Him.
Following Jesus means dying to self, not indulging it (Luke 9.23-26), and making the decision to follow Him is costly, requiring sober reflection (Luke 14.25-35).
Asking if I want to go to heaven doesn’t require dying to self. On the contrary, it appeals to my love of myself, my desire to protect myself from harm. What sane person would say yes to eternal suffering and no to eternal bliss?
Wanting to go to heaven is not the same thing as wanting to follow Christ.
In upcoming blogs, I want to share with you my journey through some affirmations and denials that have defined “building the church” for me.
We are not here to ask people if they want to escape hell. Everyone wants to.
We are not here to ask if people want to go to heaven. Everyone wants to.
We are here to call people to follow Jesus Christ.
One door opened to reveal a somewhat disheveled woman. A child was crying somewhere in the house and a dog was barking and her living room looked like a tornado had hit it. My trainer overlooked all of this and painstakingly went through the questions. The woman patiently answered ‘correctly’. When asked if she would like to pray to be saved, she said ‘yes’ and repeated the prayer after him. She then quickly closed the door and went back to her chaotic morning.
As we walked away, my trainer said, “Another soul won to Christ! Heaven is rejoicing!”
This 19-year-old wasn’t rejoicing. I was furious and proceeded to tell the man he was kidding himself if he thought that woman had truly trusted Christ. “She was trying to get rid of us!” I snapped. “Do you think she has any intention of continuing in her faith? Of ever coming to your church?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She expressed faith in Christ in that moment, so she’s going to heaven. What she does from here on out doesn’t matter.”
I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe he said that with a straight face.
I always found it confusing that in evangelicalism, people who showed no evidence of ongoing ‘faith in Christ’ could still claim they were going to heaven because they raised their hand after a sermon, went to the front of the church during an altar call, or prayed the “sinner’s prayer” at age three. That moment of faith, they were told, would get you into heaven. Continuing loyalty and obedience to Christ was optional. I have never been able to accept that.
I once had a professor who assigned affirmation/denial papers. He would give us a topic and we had to list our beliefs about it (“I affirm that X is true about Y…”) and what we rejected about the topic (“I deny that X is true about Y…”). This exercise helped us draw a general boundary around a subject so we could tweak the details and develop deeper thought later.
When I became a pastor, I went through this exercise regarding ministry (without writing the papers). Initially I spent a lot of energy on ‘denials’ (things I disliked about evangelicalism) and the notion that Christianity is about getting people out of hell and into heaven was at the top of my list of dislikes.
However, you don’t build churches around dislikes and denials. Affirmations define how you build the body. Affirmations define us, what we stand for and what we seek to accomplish.
I deny that Christianity is primarily about one’s eternal destiny in heaven or hell.
I affirm that Christianity is primarily about following Jesus.
That belief affects how we see the mission of the church and how we talk about Christianity. Someone saying ‘yes’ to the question “Do you want to go to heaven?” is not necessarily a ‘yes’ to “Do you want to follow Jesus?”.
These are two different questions. The second question is the more important, but it seems that we hardly ever ask it.
Jesus and the apostles never asked people if they wanted to go to heaven.
They laid out the claims of Jesus and called people to follow Him.
Following Jesus means dying to self, not indulging it (Luke 9.23-26), and making the decision to follow Him is costly, requiring sober reflection (Luke 14.25-35).
Asking if I want to go to heaven doesn’t require dying to self. On the contrary, it appeals to my love of myself, my desire to protect myself from harm. What sane person would say yes to eternal suffering and no to eternal bliss?
Wanting to go to heaven is not the same thing as wanting to follow Christ.
In upcoming blogs, I want to share with you my journey through some affirmations and denials that have defined “building the church” for me.
We are not here to ask people if they want to escape hell. Everyone wants to.
We are not here to ask if people want to go to heaven. Everyone wants to.
We are here to call people to follow Jesus Christ.