There’s a question that completely wrecked me when I heard it recently.
If you died tonight and stood before God and He asked you, “Why should I let you into heaven?”. what would you say?
I’ll tell you what I would’ve said. Because I believed in you. Because I tried to be a good person. Because I was a youth pastor. Because I go to church every Sunday.
Then I heard a preacher say something that just… undid all of that. And I want to walk through a story from the Bible. one most people have heard a hundred times. because when you actually stop and look at what happened there, it exposes three huge lies the church has been feeding people for decades. Lies that have pushed people away from God when they should be running toward Him.
I’ve met so many people over the years who want nothing to do with church. not because they don’t believe in God, but because they tried it once and walked away feeling worse about themselves than when they walked in. That’s not a small thing. That’s people carrying shame they were handed by a building that was supposed to be a hospital for the broken, and instead acted more like a country club with a dress code.
If You Answer That Question in First Person, You’ve Already Gone Wrong
The pastor’s point hit me before he even finished the sentence. He said, “If you answer that question in first person, you’ve already gotten it wrong.” Because I believed. Because I was faithful. Because I did this or that. All wrong answers.
The only right answer starts with because He. Not because of anything you or I did. Because of what He did.
And I sat there and had to actually think about that for a second, because my first instinct was “well obviously, yeah, I know Jesus died for our sins”. but then I started listing the things I would’ve actually said in that moment, and they were all first person. Every single one. I believed. I went to church. I raised my kids to know God. I tithed. I served. Me, me, me, me, me.
That’s not faith. That’s a resume. And God doesn’t care about your resume.
And here’s this story about a thief hanging on a cross next to Jesus. literally during the crucifixion. and this guy was cursing God out minutes before he died. And somehow, he made it into paradise. Not maybe. Not “we’ll see.” Jesus looked at him and said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
When you actually look at what happened in those last minutes of this man’s life, I think it tears apart three things the church has gotten badly wrong.
Lie #1: You Have to Come to God Cleaned Up
Quick version of the story if you don’t know it. Jesus is being crucified. Two criminals hanging there with him. Both of them, at first, are mocking Jesus. actively cursing him out while they’re all dying. “If you’re really the Son of God, save yourself and us too.” That whole thing.
But then one of them stops. He turns to the other thief and says, “Dude. We deserve to be here. We did this to ourselves. But this man didn’t do anything wrong.” And then he looks at Jesus and says the simplest thing: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
That’s it. “Remember me.” And Jesus says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
Think about what didn’t happen there. The thief never went to a Bible study. Never got baptized, never tithed, never served on a committee or went on a mission trip. He probably couldn’t name a single book of the Bible. He was a criminal who was cussing God out literally minutes before he died.
And yet the church puts out this message. sometimes without even realizing it. that you have to come to God cleaned up first. Quit the bad stuff. Fix your habits. Get your act together, and then come. Or at least come and immediately fix everything.
The thief on the cross didn’t clean up first. He came to Jesus while he was dying for his crimes. No cleanup. No time. He had maybe twenty minutes left. And God said yes.
I know this one personally. I was a youth pastor in my early 20s and I was all in. grew the youth group from five or six kids to 25, 30 teens on Wednesday nights. Events, fundraisers every month. Things were actually working. But I also smoked cigarettes and I was hiding it because I knew if anyone found out, it was over.
Eventually they found out. And I got removed from ministry. Not because I was a bad leader. Not because the youth group was failing. it was growing. I got removed because I smoked cigarettes. Because I struggled with sin.
And when I sit with that, and then look at the thief on the cross who had nothing. no credentials, no clean record, no good behavior. and Jesus said “you’re in”… while I had fruit, I had kids coming to God on Wednesday nights, and the church said “you’re out”… something about that just doesn’t sit right. You know?
I’m not bitter about it, for the record. I actually think that season had to happen the way it did. But I’ve met people who carry wounds from the church way worse than mine. people who came to God broken, started getting their feet under them, and got kicked out or made to feel like a second-class Christian because they were still in process. Some of those people never came back. Not to church, not to God, not to anything. The message they got was: fix yourself first, then come back when you’re worthy. Which is about as backwards as it gets.
You don’t get well before you go to the doctor. You go to the doctor because you need to get well. The whole thing is upside down when we tell people to clean up before coming to God. That’s not how this works. That’s never been how this works.
Lie #2: If You’re Still Struggling, You’re Not Really Saved
This is the one that I think messes people up the most.
A lot of Christians carry this weight. I came to God, but I’m still struggling with this thing. So maybe I’m not really saved. Maybe it didn’t take. Maybe it just didn’t work for me.
I know that feeling. When I came back to God about three years ago, I was still smoking weed at the time. Still struggling with pornography. Still dealing with all kinds of stuff. And every time I’d slip up, instead of going “okay, what happened, I’m getting back up,” I’d crash all the way back to zero because the guilt and the shame would just eat me alive.
Here’s what the shame spiral actually does. it doesn’t make you better. It just isolates you. You pull back from community, pull back from church, pull back from God, because you don’t feel like you deserve to be in those spaces while you’re still carrying this thing. And then you’re alone with it. And things that were already hard get harder. The shame isn’t healing you. It’s feeding the exact cycle you’re trying to break out of.
James 4:17 says, “If you know the good you ought to do and you don’t do it, that’s sin.” Same word. So the Bible doesn’t actually give us the ranking system we act like it does. Why does the church treat some sins like deal breakers and others get a pass? Gossip gets a head nod. Gluttony gets a potluck. But addiction gets you the side eye, the whispers, the quiet removal from ministry.
I’ve sat in rooms where people openly talked about being petty to a coworker, cutting people off in traffic, cutting off family members. and everyone laughs, like it’s relatable content. But if someone came in and said, “Hey, I’m really struggling with addiction,” the energy shifts immediately. People get uncomfortable. Suddenly there are prayer requests and concerned looks and quiet conversations about whether this person should be serving in kids’ ministry. Same category of sin, different cultural status, wildly different response.
That’s not the Gospel. That’s social hierarchy with scripture verses pasted on top.
The thief on the cross didn’t have a clean track record. And he never got one. he died that day. And he still made it to paradise. Because it was never about keeping score.
What actually changes behavior, in my experience, isn’t shame. It’s identity. When I started actually internalizing that I was loved, that I wasn’t condemned, that God wasn’t sitting there disappointed in me every time I fell short, something shifted. Not overnight. But the grip of certain things started to loosen. Not because I white-knuckled it harder. Because I started actually believing I was worth something apart from my performance.
Lie #3: You Have to Understand It to Deserve It
I heard this story. I think it’s from Alistair Begg. where the thief gets to heaven and some kind of angel checking him in asks, “Are you clear on the doctrine of justification by faith?” And the thief says, “I have no idea what that even means.” “Well, on what basis are you here?” And he says, “The man on the middle cross said I could come.”
I might be butchering the exact wording, but that point wrecked me. Because the thief didn’t understand theology. Didn’t know the books of the Bible. Didn’t have a pastor walking him through Romans. He just knew that Jesus was who He said He was. Or at least he had enough humility to say, “Remember me.”
There’s this whole culture in certain church circles where you almost have to earn your place at the table by knowing enough. The right verses, the right language, the ability to hold your own in theological conversations. And look. theology matters, I’m not saying it doesn’t. but it’s not the ticket in. It’s never been the ticket in.
I’ve met people who can quote scripture from memory, who know their systematic theology cold, who’ve read every C.S. Lewis book twice, and they are some of the most miserable, judgmental, joyless people I’ve ever been around. And I’ve met people who can barely find John 3:16, who are brand new to all of this, who have this rawness and realness in their faith that makes you want what they have. Knowing a lot is not the same thing as knowing Him. Those are genuinely different things.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says it plain: “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Not by knowledge. Not by being a perfect Christian. It’s a gift. You can’t earn a gift. You can study it, understand it better over time. but none of that studying is what made it yours.
The thief on the cross received a gift he had done absolutely nothing to deserve, with minutes to live, zero theological background to back it up. He just turned toward Jesus and said, “Don’t forget me.” And Jesus didn’t.
The Part That Actually Gets Me
There were two thieves. Same cross, same crimes, same circumstances, same Jesus hanging right there in the middle. The only difference was that one of them turned.
That’s it. One turned. One didn’t. And the one who turned, turned with nothing. No offer to do better, no plan, no future good deeds to promise. Just. I know I don’t deserve this. I know who you are. Remember me.
And that’s what repentance actually is. It’s not “I’m sorry I got caught.” It’s not “I feel bad about this.” It’s: I’m done pretending. I’m turning toward Jesus. Asking him to remember me, even though I have nothing to offer.
I think about the other thief a lot, honestly. He had the same access. Three feet away from Jesus. He heard the same conversation. Had the same shot. And he didn’t take it. I don’t know what was going on in his heart in those final minutes, but there’s something sobering about that. Proximity to truth doesn’t save you. You can sit in church your whole life and be the second thief. You can have Christian parents, a Christian education, Sunday school certificates going back to 1994, and still be the guy who never turned.
That tells me it’s never too late. If a guy who was cursing God out minutes before his death can turn around and make it, then wherever you are right now. it’s not too late.
One thing I want to be clear about. this isn’t a hall pass. Grace isn’t permission. The Bible’s clear on that. Grace is power. The power to actually change, not because you’re scared of hell, but because you finally understand how much you’re loved.
I heard it put this way once: sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you ever wanted to pay. But grace will find you wherever you are and say, “You’re not too far gone. Let’s go home.”
When you really get that. like actually get it. the sin starts to lose its grip. Not because you’re trying harder. Because you’re running toward something better instead of just running away from something bad. Completely different motivation. Produces completely different results.
What the Church Could Learn From a Convicted Criminal
I say this with love, because the church is full of people who are genuinely trying and doing a lot of good. But institutionally, a lot of churches have a posture problem.
We’ve made church into a place where you come to look good rather than a place where you come to get honest. And when you optimize for looking good, the people who are actually struggling. the people who most need to be there. are the ones who feel least welcome. Completely backwards.
Jesus spent most of his time with people the religious establishment wanted nothing to do with. Tax collectors, prostitutes, people with diseases that made them ceremonially unclean. He wasn’t doing that by accident. He was making a point about where the door is and who it’s open for.
The thief on the cross is maybe the most extreme version of that point. If even this guy. a criminal, actively mocking Jesus, no resume, no time. gets a yes, then what disqualifies anybody? What’s the bar that this story doesn’t clear? I genuinely can’t find one.
The church would reach more people if it stopped trying to be a place where good people go to stay good, and started actually being the hospital it’s supposed to be. Hospitals don’t turn patients away for being too sick. That’s literally the whole reason they exist.
What to Do With This
I’ve struggled with addiction my whole life. Pretty much anything that gives me dopamine, I’ve been addicted to at some point. When I came back to God, that didn’t magically disappear. For a long time I felt like a fraud because of it. But then I really sat with this story, and I realized that thief came to God with absolutely nothing. No clean record, no improvement plan, no credentials. Just “remember me.” And if that was enough for him, then me showing up and fighting my battles. that has to be more than enough.
If you’re reading this and you’ve been away from God for a while. five years, ten years, fifteen. you don’t have to come cleaned up. You don’t have to have it figured out. You don’t have to quit the thing you think disqualifies you before you can come back. And you absolutely don’t have to care what anybody else thinks about your walk with God.
Your relationship with God is not mediated by whoever gave you side-eye at church three years ago. It’s not gated by someone else’s opinion of your sin list. It’s not contingent on you having impressive things to say when you get there. The thief had nothing impressive to say. He had a criminal record, a guilty conscience, and about twenty minutes left to live. And that was enough to get in.
Romans 8:1: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” No condemnation. Not if you get your act together first. Not if you stop struggling. Just. no condemnation.
The thief on the cross had every reason to be condemned. And Jesus said, “You’re in.”
That includes you.
If you’ve been carrying this thing around for years. the feeling that you’re too far gone, that you blew your shot, that you know too much about your own story to believe God would really want you back. I want you to look at this story and sit with it for a minute. Because if that guy, in those final minutes, with that track record, could say “remember me” and get a yes… then the story you’ve been telling yourself about being too far gone is a lie. A convincing lie. A comfortable one in its own weird way, because it lets you off the hook. But still a lie.
If that’s you. if you’ve been away and you’re thinking about coming back. just say, “Jesus, remember me.” That’s it. No fancy prayer. No church building required. The thief didn’t have any of that either. He just said, “Remember me.” And if you mean it, that’s enough.
Not because I. Because He.