Hi chas, actually only one of the criminals who died by Jesus' side was taken with Jesus to Paradise. It was the one who recognized that he was a sinner and deserved to die but that Jesus was blameless and did not deserve to die.

To your question, our eternal destiny is not determined by how "good" we are in our life on earth. The truth is that none of us is sinless, none of us deserves all that God has in store for us in Heaven. It is only by our faith in Jesus as the Son of God, by recognizing that we are sinners and deserve punishment and by seeking Jesus' forgiveness that we can hope to spend eternity in Heaven.

So, if you do that today you can be assured of your future regardless of what you have done in your life. The important thing to remember, of course, is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, so putting that decision off until tomorrow may be a bad decision that you could spend a long time regretting.

By the way, you can live an awesome joyful life as a Christian!

Please think about this.