Of all the pressing questions of the day, a sign on one person's desk asks, "How much can I sin and still go to heaven?" The question seems amusing until we stop to think about it. Inherent in this question is a bold-faced confession that there is no interest at all in pursuing a life shaped wholly by the spirit of God, but at the same time we do not want to be so recklessly sacrilegious that we forfeit completely the rewards of the hereafter.

The late Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard said thinking about hell scared the you-know-what out of him. One day he received a questionnaire in the mail titled "Heaven: Are You Eligible?" Grizzard said he took the test and scored "too close to call."1 How much can I sin and still go to heaven? Lest we fail to recognize the question in that form, perh…