What Bad Things Must you do to go to Hell?

Often times when I talk with people they'll say something along the lines of "I know I'm not perfect but overall I'm a good person so I know God will let me into Heaven when I die."

The Bible has a lot to say on this issue and views things a bit differently. First, we must look at who God is. God by his definition is all that is holy, pure, perfect and righteous. This is important to note. Because he is these things, God cannot be around sin, if he was it would be directly contrary to what his nature is. Sin can be defined as “anything that is contrary to God’s will.” What that means is that anytime we do one thing that is against God’s will, we become tarnished because of it. Some examples of sin could be telling a lie, stealing something, being angry, cussing at someone, looking at inappropriate things, or love of money. While we humans may not think these things are that big of a deal (after all, it’s not like we are Adolph Hitler or anything), God views it differently. In fact, this subject is so important to God he says that if you are guilty of breaking one rule, you are guilty of breaking all of them. Think about that for a minute, guilty of breaking all of them? That is a heavy thought to carry.

Now let’s just assume for arguments sake that overall you are a good person. Maybe you give money to charity, volunteer at a homeless shelter, or never argue with someone over a parking space. The Bible says all have sinned. So let’s just assume that a person only sins 3 times a day (although if they are like me it is probably more like three times an hour). 3 sins a day times 365 days in the year means they sin 1095 times a year. Over the course of the next 40 years they have sinned 43,800 times. All of the sudden it doesn’t look so good. Could you imagine standing before a traffic judge with 43,800 traffic tickets? Would the judge just overlook it? No of course not, we must be held responsible for our actions. That’s what justice is.

So as you can see, all it takes is one sin for us to be removed from God’s presence which is Hell. You can also see that most of us, no matter how good we are, sin quite a bit more than we realize. However that is the bad news, the good news is that through a relationship with Christ, those sins can be forgiven and we can have eternal life with God in Heaven.