Jesus’ ministry was not about you going to heaven (or staying out of hell)

That’s right you heard me. Jesus did not come to earth as a baby to a poor Nazarene carpenter, start a three year ministry, get falsely accused, go through a kangaroo court, get beaten and brutally sacrificed on a cross and rose to life again three days later so that you would spend your whole life trying to get to heaven! Yes, I do believe in heaven and I do believe in hell. But I believe that if we focus on those as the primary purpose for the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we miss the main point. Furthermore, when we dedicate ourselves to this objective we become no better that the Pharisees of Jesus’ time.
In Matt 23:23 (NIV) Jesus says "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”. Jesus taught us that the greatest commandment was to love God and to love others. The whole bible is summed up in these two ideas. These two ideas can be effectively addressed through just one … love others. When we focus on some objective that moves our focus away from this, God becomes displeased, even if your desire is to be with Him. Why? Because His desire is that we love each other. When we focus on following the law or getting to heaven, or staying out of hell we loose focus on mercy, justice and faithfulness. We become self absorbed and convert others over to this “gospel” of lets all go to heaven. The mindset is not so different from the mindset of the Pharisees of the first century.
Jesus says in Matt 9:13 and 12:7 (twice he said it) that God desires mercy rather than sacrifice. God does not want or need your poor pathetic attempts at being worthy of heaven or hell. He wants you to be mindful of your neighbor. He wants you to deny yourself, share in your neighbors burdens and work at healing this broken and sinful world. When He comes back to take His bride away to eternal life with Him, He desires to find us laboring at this task, not seated eagerly in our escape pods ready to be saved from the mother ship which is about to be destroyed.
Lets join Jesus in His mission (i.e. follow Him) of saving this lost world the way He did. By the way, did Jesus ever tell anyone how to get to heaven or did he ever ask anyone to accept Him as savior? Re-read your gospels carefully. Don’t you think that if it were important, that Jesus himself would have said it while he was here and while people were recording his every word and move? Jesus spoke many times of the Kingdom of Heaven, but he mostly referred to it in the present tense and here on earth (read the Lords prayer).