Side note: Did you know that God the father has a personal name? In way olden days, people would refer to God as Elohim when they were generically referring to God, but his personal name was something closer to Yahweh or Jehovah (Jehovah).

Of course you want to go to heaven, everyone wants to go to heaven. Who doesn’t want good or nice things and happiness and to not die?

If I belonged to a fancy frequent flyers club, it would be a completely reasonable thing to ask what the minimum requirements are to stay in the club. They would even help me with that.

If I went to go marry Cuyler and I asked him, what is the least amount I could do to stay married to you and still be your wife?

If you want the person, minimum requirements wont matter, and if you don’t want the person, minimum requirements won’t matter!

Matthew 15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

9 They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules.’[c]”

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides.[d] If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

This is why it is so offensive to God to think that we can be good enough to get in to heaven, because then I am rejecting not only the words of Jesus, but what he did for me and his offer of relationship. It’s like saying that I can be such a good wife that I don’t really need the work on the relationship part of my marriage. When the relationship is the point of marriage.

Discussion Questions:

What sort of impression do you feel you give to others?

If someone asked you the question “What would be the least amount of effort I could do to be your Husband/wife?”, what would your response be?