Dear President Trump, This is How You Get to Heaven.

Recently, something has weighed heavily on my heart. Perhaps you saw President Trump’s interview where he said, “I want to try and get to heaven” and suggested that ending the war in Ukraine might be his way there. Soon after, his campaign sent an email with the subject line “Help President Trump Get to Heaven”—followed, of course, by a request for donations.As you might expect, his opponents mocked the statement, while many of his supporters celebrated it. But my reaction was different: I was both heartbroken and deeply concerned. Not because I am angry with him—I am not. Instead, I feel compassion for him. I do not want to see him deceived about eternity. His remarks revealed that, after all these years, he still does not understand the true way of salvation.That reality should grieve every believer. What does it say about the evangelical leaders who have surrounded him for a decade—Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Paula White, and others—that President Trump still believes heaven is earned by good works or fundraising? Especially considering Paula White supposedly led him to Christ in 2014. How is it possible that after all the access, the prayers, the public praise, the declarations of him as “God’s man”—he still does not know the simplicity of the gospel?These leaders have spent years evangelizing his name, defending his reputation, and cloaking his campaigns in spiritual language, praying grand prayers at his inauguration. Yet they have failed miserably in their most basic responsibility: to clearly share the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. That realization broke me. And it moved me to say, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.”So last weekend, I wrote President Trump an email explaining what salvation truly is and how one receives eternal life. Will he ever read it? Perhaps not. But that’s not the point. My obedience is. And I pray that if he does read it—or even if this post reaches him—the Spirit of God will open his eyes to the truth of the gospel: not the politicized version promoted by some evangelical leaders, but the reality of a repentant faith and humble dependence on Jesus Christ.I invite you to join me. Read the email below. Then, if you feel led, send your own message to him—or share mine. Encourage others to do the same. Imagine the impact if Christians spent as much energy witnessing to President Trump as we do debating about him. Who knows what God might do in our nation if His truth reached the heart of even one man?So with that, here is the letter I sent.Mr. President,Recently you expressed your concern about whether you would make it to heaven and said you hoped stopping the war in Ukraine would get you there. This morning, in an email to your supporters, you expressed that desire again while asking for donations to help you get to heaven. As a Christian, this broke my heart because you have been surrounded by evangelical leaders since 2014, yet these men and women have failed miserably at speaking the truth of the gospel to you. I truly hope you will read this email, because it is written from a heart to longs to see you find the peace of knowing you will spend eternity in heaven.The bad news is our attempts at being righteous are worthless (Isaiah 64:6). Sir, there is no amount of good work, power, or political capital that will get you into heaven. You could end every war in the world, and your donors could donate $100 trillion dollars each to your campaign, but you would still spend eternity in hell.What your ‘spiritual advisers’ have failed to tell you is you are dying and going to hell, not because you haven’t brought peace to the world or you don’t have enough money, you are dying and going to hell because you are a sinner, just as I and every other human being on earth is. And, contrary to popular belief, it is not merely the sins people consider ‘big’ such as murder, abortion, etc. that make us sinners. The frightening truth is, no matter how good of a person we think we are, we could never measure up to God’s standard of holiness. One lustful thought, one act of greed, one failure to show love to or wish harm to someone else would condemn us to an eternity in hell. The Bible says that God hates those who lie, those who are full of pride, and who sow discord among others (Proverbs 6:16-19). That is why Romans 3:23 says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ because not a single soul has lived without sin, except Jesus Christ.But it goes deeper than that.You see Mr. President; it is not the act of sin that makes us sinners and condemns us to hell. On the contrary, we commit sin because we are, at our very core, sinful creatures. King David tells us, ‘I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me’ and we read in Mark 7:21, ‘out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, and adulteries”. Jeremiah puts it this way, ‘The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked’. Jesus, Himself asked a man who called Him ‘Good teacher’, “Why do you call me good? There is none good except God the Father”. If Jesus, the perfect and sinless son said that, then we would be foolish to think we could ever be ‘good’.But there is good news! You see, unlike you and me sir, God can be just in His anger and punishment of sin, while still loving those men and women who are His enemies and He did that through the sacrifice of His Son; ‘God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). It through the blood sacrifice, death, and resurrection of Jesus we have hope, Mr. President.When Christ died on the cross, He took our punishment upon Himself. The wrath and anger of God that you and I deserve were placed upon Him. You see, Mr. President, every act of adultery you’ve committed, every act of greed, every failure to show kindness to others, and every lie or sinful thought you have ever had, has received punishment on the cross. That is why you are able to go to heaven. It is not by your work, but His. It is a gift of God given to underserving men to show God’s love and goodness to the world (Romans 6:23). That is why it is called ‘grace’, because we cannot earn our salvation, it is ‘unmerited favor’ of God toward wicked men.However, for that grace to be applied to our lives, we must accept that gift and that is only done through repentance and this, Mr. President, is where your so-called spiritual advisers failed you. Repentance is not simply praying a cookie cutter prayer and saying you’re sorry. It is a completely transforming decision to walk away from your sinful life and walk toward holiness and righteous living. This is not a decision made out of guilt or fear of eternal punishment, but one made out of a godly sorrow; ‘For it is godly sorrow that leads to repentance and salvation” (2 Corinthians 7:10).I know the evangelical community has spent the last ten years idolatrously putting you on an almost godlike pedestal, calling you ‘God’s man’, ‘The chosen one’, and blasphemously comparing your felony trial and conviction to Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. But, sir, I love you enough to say, while God has placed you in the position of authority you are in now, you are still an enemy of God unless you fall on your knees in repentance and rise to new life in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). I encourage you Mr. President to pray to God to give you that godly sorrow, which leads you to repentance and to seek out true Christian leaders, men and women who have no desire to use you for political gain as Franklin Graham, Paula White, and Robert Jefress do, but godly men and women who see you as a creation of God in need of His salvation. They most certainly will say things that anger you and cut you to bone about your sinful actions, but if you truly desire to go to heaven, and without humbling ourselves before God, we will never receive His salvation.Sir, I pray that one day, as we stand before God, I see you standing completely forgiven and justified by His blood because you found the truth of Christianity is not about political power but about surrendering our lives to the will of God and growing in Christ’s likeness. Get full access to The Not So Political Protestant at thenotsopoliticalprotestant.substack.com/subscribe