Like my title says, getting to Heaven is not a game of chance in which only some people or only christians go to it. Everyone that leads a good and righteous life will be warmly and gracefully welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven. You can be of any religion and still obtain your just rewards, but only if you are righteous.
Even Pope John Paul II believed that everyone has the opportunity to get to Heaven, and not just Christians, not just Jewish people, not just Muslims, and not just Hindus, or anyone else that doesn't fall into the above religions. The point is that anyone can get to heaven if they work for it.
One can not work to earn salvation or it would make the work of Christ at the cross empty and purposeless.
Works are a man centered gospel that says, if I'm good enough and work hard enough, I can achieve righteous status with God, this line of thought goes against everything Jesus and scripture teaches and makes men out to be self righteous and their own means to salvation.
...who gets the glory here,God or man ?????
If man could have done something that appeases God for their sins,then they would have,but Jesus came ,sent by God to pay the price that man could not pay.
Those who don't receive that legal transaction Christ satisified ,then they are still in sin and guilty before God
One is not righteous enough to attain heaven status by simply holding to a faith in God or by obeying certain rules and following certain traditions.
The religious leaders did in Jesus day and were condemned by Jesus.
One is declared righteous by God in receiving salvation found in Christ as Savior and his sacrifice for sin and then one is able to live a godly life that pleases the Lord.
Men do good works in accordance to scripture because they have the Holy Spirit within them, which is the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5
You don't do good works to please God ,you do good works because the Holy Spirit resides in you, anything done without the spirit is self righteous acts
Isa 64:6But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away
Rom 3:23 For
all have sinned, and
come short
of the glory of God;
Psa 14:3The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, [and] seek God.They are all gone aside, they are [all] together become filthy: [there is] none that doeth good, no, not one.
Psa 53:3Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; [there is] none that doeth good, no, not one.
Mat 15:19But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the manFor out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
