>
> God's justness is perfect. That means his
>standards are perfect. The Bible says that all
>fall short of the glory of God and that there is
>not one who has not sinned. Therefore, "earning"
>our way into God's favor is simply not humanly
>possible, however much you may wish to do it.
>Ephesians 2:8-9 state: "For by grace are ye saved
>through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is
>the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man
>should boast." Titus 3:5 says: "Not by works of
>righteousness which we have done, but according
>to his mercy he saved us." The point is, there's
>nothing you can *do* to earn your way to heaven.
>No amount of good works can make you "good
>enough" in God's eyes. The only way to get out
>of paying that fine is to accept the gift from
>God of Jesus Christ paying it for us. (In John
>14:6, Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth, and
>the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by
>me.")

If I am imperfect then it is because I was either made that way or something happened to cause me to be that way. Christians believe the latter. However, I do not subscribe to the "sins of the father" line of belief. I am not responsible for nor will I be held accountable for something I never had any choice in. I am imperfect because I was born that way, and every person born deserves Hell just for the sin of birth. If a child dies before being able to know Christ the child must necessarily go to Hell, musn't it? How can holding someone responsible for something they never did be either just *or* merciful?

I am imperfect through no fault of my own. I will remain imperfect no matter what I do. Judgeing my involuntarily imperfect exsitence against perfect standards is not my idea of perfect justice.

>
>I agree with you on one thing -- it *would* be
>nice to earn a way to heaven and feel as though
>it were deserved somehow. Conceding to the truth
>of the Bible, however, means taking an admittedly
>disturbing and humbling step. It means that we
>can't do anything to save ourselves. It means
>our destinies are out of our control.

All that free will and there is only ever one thing worth exercising it for? No thank you. If Hitler is in heaven, I don't want to be there.