Will a personal relationship with Jesus get you to Heaven?

Yeah you're right!

The phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" doesn't really mean a whole lot, in and of itself. The requirements are that you accept Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for your sins, repent, and confess Jesus to others. You can't pray a prayer and become a child of God. God chose those who will be saved from the foundation of the world, and He must FIRST send you the Holy Spirit before you can even ASK. These sinners' prayers are misleading because they lead to a person thinking he has God when he may very well not have Him at all. If these are not followed up by discipleship, they are worthless, and a lot of people who pray them drift away from the Christian faith. If the Holy Spirit comes to you, you will just find that you believe the necessary things. The Holy Spirit will work THROUGH you to do good works. We are not saved because of good works, but FOR good works. If you tell someone that all he has to do is pray the sinner's prayer, you may be misleading him.

Instead, point to what the Bible says directly. Then let the Holy Spirit work in that person's life. Romans 10:13 says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" is a very good place to start. I think the Romans Road is a pretty good summary of the basic Gospel message. I put it on my web site. You can see it at the link below.

The goal here is to love God and accept Jesus' sacrifice. Going to heaven is the reward, but the goal is for you to give God the praise and honor due His name. God does things so that He will be glorified. Glorify Him by accepting His sacrifice as total payment for your sins. Paul tells us that we must believe that Jesus rose from the dead. This is the firstfruits, and because He rose, we will also. Focus on God, and glorifying Him, and these things will be added to you.

Recognize WHOSE decision it is. It's God's decision to call you. Making a "decision" means that either we are fooling ourselves, or God already made the decision, and this is our response.

But what if Jesus didn't do and say all of those things?

What if the bible is just a lie about God?

Think about it. God is real but The bible was created by the roman empire to change the message of Jesus to something that the Romans found more acceptable.

This is why it is often difficult to understand. The message of Jesus on the other hand is elegant and simple to understand. You need to separate the message that Jesus left for us from all of the nonsense that the Romans overlaid it with and it will start to become quite easy to understand.

Don't take my word for any of this. Study biblical history for your self and draw your own conclusions. There are many good books on this subject by some intelligent and thoughtful people. Take advantage of their efforts.

Email if you are interested and I will send some suggested reading material.

Love and blessings.

Don

I believe that when Christ died on the cross He died for all sin for all time thereby making sin a non-issue in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.

The only sin that I do believe that wasn't covered by the blood of Jesus is denying Christ and Salvation in order to remain dead in sin.

Because of Jesus sin no longer separates us from God but we still need spiritual life which we are given upon being saved.

When we are saved God breaths life into our spirits and gives us a new heart and a new mind and delivers us from our sin nature and gives us the very nature of Christ Himself.

We are filled with the Holy Spirit who will live for us through us and we will live as children of God.

But for those who have never heard of Jesus or Salvation are innocent in the eyes of God because they have not denied Christ and never knew any better so I do believe that upon dying they are given a choice no matter what evil things they've done while alive here on earth.

Even in death for those who have never known about Jesus they have a chance to chose life by their Lord and Savior.

I am glad that I know about Jesus and have chosen to be reborn because now I can see everything with open eyes and I no longer stumble around in the dark tormenting myself with my sins.

Take care of orphans and widows care for their poor and oppressed care for Creation. stay clean of the poisons of the world.

Live decently and act like Jesus. You will see heaven right here on earth. If you are Christian jewish muslim buddist pagan zorastrian etc etc God loves you no matter what and If you are truly saved by Grace then GOd doesnt realy care what YOU call him.People who care what you call him are interested in POWER and CONTROL. Just be decent and Kind. You will find out about heaven.

''Repentance'' is also used in connection with salvation, meaning a turning from sin to God [ Acts 26:18-20 ]. One must turn from sin to the Saviour. Salvation is not in turning from sin but trusting Christ [ Acts20:21 2Corinthians 7:10].

That prayer will not save anyone. You left out the main essential ingredient. Read Romans 10:9-10 "...that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." You can't have salvation without confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. What you are presenting it what we call "easy believeism". Just say those words and you will be saved. Problem? No committment.

Legalistic organized religion likes to make salvation much more complicated than it really is (I swear, the Church of Christ teaches six steps to heaven - hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized and live faithfully - of course, only they could define what "living faithfully" was!), primarily I think to justify their existence and bank accounts - but I am a "John 3:16 Christian" - whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it.

To be born again you accept Jesus as your Savior. that is the first step and the step that saves you. The next step is purely a witness & testimony of obedience which is baptism. We do not get baptised to be saved, we get baptised in obedience to Jesus command. We take communion not to be saved but because we are saved.

I hope this clears this up for you. Big Hug, menome b (Gramma)

Any one but they must hear the word of God first. Romans 10:17 " So then faith cometh by hearing , hearing by the word of God ". That why the gospel must be sent to all ends of the earth. www.fbbc.com

you must repent, yes. but you must also admit your sins with your tongue in front of others (not just in your mind) and be baptized. coming back up from the water is symbolic of you being born again.

basically, talk to your pastor about it.