I’ve been talking a lot about heaven and hell.

But who goes where? In other words, what makes someone right with God and given a place in heaven, and what makes someone wrong with God and therefore banished from his presence after they die?

And who decides these things?

I know, I know. These are huuuuge questions!

[To listen to my podcast about them scroll down.]

I won’t tackle them all today in this short devotional. But over the next few days I’ll be giving us some things to think about.

Today, let me just say this:

Although the Bible tells us a lot of solid wisdom about what does or doesn’t give us eternal peace with God after we die, none of us should ever pretend to be over-confident about someone else’s eternal fate.

In Acts 10:42 we are told that Jesus will be the “judge of the living and the dead.” In other words, Jesus is the ultimate Judge—not you or me.

In his book Engaging with Atheists, David Robertson says: “Your calling is not to determine who goes to heaven; your calling is to point the way.”

We should be confident in Christ. But we should also be very humble. As it says in Living Faith*: “in the spirit of humility, as beggars telling others where food is to be found, we point to life in Christ.”

“Your calling is not to determine who goes to heaven; your calling is to point the way.”

And the way is Jesus.

By Matthew Ruttan
—“Who goes where? (And who decides?)” is Part 4 in the Heaven and Hell series. Click here to listen to the podcast.
—Bible quotes are from the New International Version
—*Living Faith is a ‘subordinate standard’ of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.