Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John Podcast with a long time pastor and author, John Piper.

We recently received an anonymous question from an international listener to the podcast

who emails us and who listens from a rural region in Nigeria, amazing.

And it is a very simple but profoundly important question that all of us, all of us must

answer at some point in our lives.

Here it is, Pastor John, how do I know if I'm ready for heaven?

Well, I love that somebody asks this simple basic question because it gives me a chance

to go right to the heart of the Bible, right to the heart of the best news in all the

world that we call the gospel, namely that nobody is fit for heaven.

He is ready for heaven, nobody deserves heaven, nobody can expect to go to heaven unless

God steps in and provides a way by grace, grace and by mercy that through face,

not through my good deeds or my merit could get could get me there.

And that's exactly why the Bible was written.

I mean, that's why Jesus came into the world.

That's why there's a history of salvation.

The most important part of the Bible that explains this is I think the letter to the Romans

written by the Apostle Paul's if you want one short book, I mean, 16 chapters,

but you can read it an hour to explain all this, go to Romans.

What he shows there first is that and we know this, everybody knows this,

if we're honest with our conscience, every human being has sinned, he said,

that it's failed to live for God, to honor God, to glorify God.

We're all selfish.

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