Who’s in Heaven?

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43

Me: I cannot believe that that man will be in heaven with my grandmother!

My husband:  So, you think Jesus just died for our little sins?

This was the end of a conversation between me and my husband many years ago. I was a Juvenile Probation Officer and had just returned from the funeral of the father of one of the kids on my caseload. They had found him at the bottom of a river with cement boots on.

As I had worked with this thirteen year old girl she told me stories of the drug use and abuse of her father, how he had played Russian roulette with her with real bullets when he was high, and how he was always illegally carrying a weapon, even into my office. The man who officiated at his funeral service talked of this man finally being at rest in heaven. REALLY?

What I did not realize at the time was that I was not a saint myself. I saw myself as pure as the driven snow because I compared my life to lives like this drug addicted convict. I looked pretty good compared to him. In God’s sight it was hard for me to understand that I was on the same level for my pride and greed as he was for abusing his daughters and selling drugs.

It was many years after this conversation that the Lord rained down grace on me so that I came to some understanding of who I was, a sinner saved by His grace, and who He is, a gracious and merciful God. It was in studying the account of His death in Luke 23 that I got the reminder of that conversation from many years ago.

As Jesus was hanging on the cross there were two criminals, one on either side of Him, being crucified for their wrongdoing.  This is how Luke presents it from Luke 23:39-43: One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Jesus told this man he would be in heaven that day. This criminal hanging next to Him saw his sin and admitted his own guilt. He said he deserved to die. But, he knew that Jesus was innocent, sinless, in fact, and asked Jesus to pardon his sin by asking for His grace to remember him. In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul said, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” This criminal had godly grief setting an example for us.

It would appear that God does not compartmentalize sin as we do, big sins and little sins. Rather, he listens to our words and looks at the heart. Romans 10:9 promises this: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

God saves those who repent of their sin.  He will save murderers and thieves as graciously as gossips and liars. He will save small children and the elderly on their death beds.

I must admit now, I have no idea what happened between God and the father of my probationer before he died. I may get to heaven and be greeted by him and my grandmother.