First of all Judi, talking about you and your chances, I recommend that you be way nicer to all those many poor folk on tbd who just can't keep up with your clear thinking and logical, tough arguments! Damaging their spirits is a bad thing, I'm pretty sure. Afterall, I guess it's that spirit that goes to Heaven.

Back to the question. I can't go past the "fact" that God surely already knows the answer as to what future we face in our afterlife. He knows what we think and believe. Whether He and Heaven are important personal beliefs to me. What sort of person I am, whether I am Heaven material or not. If I naturally have good thoughts and do sterling deeds.

There's nothing more to do than continue to improve ourselves in this mortal life, await our turn to die, then nervously (I suppose) find out whether we made it or not. It's probably already too late to change fate.

LOL! Thanks, Tony, for being concerned about my chances!

You've made a very good start to this discussion . . .

Now, how good do you have to be? How do you know what is good and what isn't? Is there some kind of standard that God goes by?

As a kid I learned that God works in mysterious ways. Getting into Heaven is His ultimate goal, and possibly He demands the pinnacle of earthly standards for this to be achieved.

Obviously, I'm only guessing, because that's all we can do. As mortal sinners (well, maybe not you given that you're an exception!) we can look within ourselves for the likely answer. Has the preponderance of our life been filled with, by man's standards, humanitarian, worthwhile, kind and caring deeds? Or has the emphasis been on greed, doing people in (in our best corporate leadership and political candidate traditions)? Are we basically unkind and cruel?

We know the answer to such moral and behavioral questions, from that little voice within us. That's God's mysterious message. One just has to hope that it's true if you're lucky enough when the "voice" brings good news.

All my life I always being thaught that the question should be the other way around: "If you know that you will be in heaven no matter what, how good are you going to be?"

Hey, Tjipto! Good answer, but how does a person know they are going to heaven? And, depending on your answer to that, what does being "good" mean?

Hey Judi, I don't think that we can go to heaven by our deals or on a feeling we have to have a personal relationship with God we have to really know him, it's like if I would come to your house to visit you would not know me but if I hang around you then when I come around you then I will not be a stranger. the key thing that I had to do is be around you and learn about you that's the same way with God you have to know him in order to recieve his blessing an heaven is one of the blessings that the believer will recieve.

Great start, Catherine! Now, what does God say you have to do to go to heaven? Is it with works? Then whose works and how much work?

What do you mean by "knowing" God? How do I get to know Him? What do I have to Do? The "Do" part is what I'm looking for in the question. If I have to DO something, then how much is enough?

We're getting there.