By Mary Carothers

How many times we are tempted to try to build a ladder to Heaven rather than rely on the cross of Jesus! In our pride, we often try to earn our way to Heaven by the things we do. Have you ever been tempted to think that doing any of the following would take you one rung higher on your “ladder”?

Going to church every Sunday or to Mass every day…

Being careful to eat only the clean foods God allows…

Reading the Bible every day…

Saying prayers at regular and specific times…

Being a church member in good standing…

Being baptized…

Obeying the Old Testament Laws…

While all of these things are good, they fall short of making a ladder to Heaven. To make us ready for Heaven, God Himself, must take the precious, holy blood of Jesus and apply it to our sins, and to our sinful, carnal nature, supernaturally making us a new creation (see II Cor. 5:17).

God gave His laws to His people to show them (and us) how to live in a way that is pleasing to Him, thus avoiding many mistakes that the ungodly make, and receiving the blessings that He wants to give us.

Paul tells us in Galatians that no one is justified in God’s eyes by obeying the law; rather, the only way we can have right standing with God is by trusting Jesus’ blood to cancel out all our sins. He even goes so far as to say that if we could possibly be good enough to get to Heaven by our own efforts, then Christ died for no purpose (see Gal. 2:21).

Why did Jesus need to die for us? He had to die for our sins because there was no other way to redeem mankind. We may be very sure that if God could have redeemed us any other way, He would never have planned for Jesus to suffer so terribly. Also be assured that the terrible suffering and shame that Jesus endured was necessary and was planned by God. He foretold it hundreds of years before in His Word (see Isaiah 53, Psalm 22).

Each of us must recognize our need for a Savior. We must realize that since we can never keep the law perfectly, nor can we ever be good enough to get into Heaven, we are in serious trouble and need HELP. The problem for many of us is that we don’t want to humble ourselves and admit that we need help. When we are willing to confess that we can never be good enough to get to heaven, then help is available in Jesus, our Savior. He lived the sinless life that none of us could. With His own blood He paid the penalty of death and separation from the Father for our sins that God’s holiness demanded. There is nothing more we can do, absolutely nothing that will make us righteous in God’s eyes but to trust in the blood of Jesus to take our sins away.  (Reprint from May 2011)