How To Get To Heaven
by Jesus Christ

    Someone came to Jesus with this question:  "Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life?"

"When you call me good you are really calling me God," Jesus replied, "for God alone is truly good.  But to answer your question, you can get to Heaven if you keep the Commandments."

"Which ones?" the man asked.

And Jesus replied, "Don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, honor your father and your mother, and love your neighbor as yourself!"

"I've always obeyed every one of them," the youth replied.  "What else must I do?"

Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

But when the young man heard this, he went away sadly, for he was very rich.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.  I say it again, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!"

This remark confounded the disciples.  "Then who in the world can be saved?" they asked.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, "Humanly speaking, no one.  But with God, everything is possible."

* As retold by Matthew (verses 19:16-26   New Living Translation)