minecraft:is it bad that I cheated my items back when I died in lava?

Answer 1

Depends. If you are on single player game or your own server, im sure you can forgive yourself. :) But if it's a server which is not owned by you and/or is against the rules to do so, there may be concequences. (All though, if you could get the items back in the first place, im sure it's ok.)