Never ‘good’ enough
It is quite easy to realize how difficult it might have been to grow up in the same house as the Lord Jesus.
- Just imagine sharing a bedroom, a lunch table, or even a toybox with Jesus when you were young. &
- Just imagine a childish spat that you voiced when your demands were not met. & also
- Just imagine the way you may have acted toward your half-brother, whenever you got up from the wrong side of the bed and stubbed your big toe on the bedpost. & finally
- Just imagine if you had been born as James, the half-brother of Jesus.
A childish spat declaring what’s mine—OR—A quickly spoken, angry word: Truthfully, we’ve all been there. The Bible tells us in The Old Testament how humanity has been born into iniquity (into a sinful nature). No one needed to teach us how to lie, how to take what was not ours, how to quickly steal a toy from a playmate, or how to shove another while standing in line. Yes, we were not taught how to tell “small, white lies,” and we were not taught how to feel anger in our hearts. WE WERE BORN THAT WAY!
Thus, because we were born with a tendency to sin—
- How could we ever hope to gain entrance into heaven? &
- Who is worthy to go to heaven when life here is finished? &
- Who displays a sinless nature, one that gives him passage into paradise with God? & truly,
- Whom among mankind could ever raise his hand and proclaim: “Choose me, LORD, for I have remained clean (from sin) all of my life”?
The answers are really quite simple—
No one. No one. No one. NO ONE!
For it is the TRUTH: ALL (as in all of mankind) SIN.
This TRUTH comes not from man but from Holy God. His Word states it so.
“If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture,
(The Letter of James 2: 8-10 NASB)
“YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,” you are doing well.
But if you show partiality,
you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,
he has become guilty of all.”
For several years, I taught American Literature, and Benjamin Franklin was a favorite rascal I had the pleasure of sharing with my students. If we remember anything about this founding father, then we remember how he was present during the signing of The Declaration of Independence, how he suffered with gout, how he was an ambassador to France, how he served as a member of the Continental Congress but never as the president of our newly formed United States of America. We also know that he married up in the world when he married Deborah, that Franklin wrote his own epitaph and when death claimed their lives, both were buried in a humble plot, emblazoned with words on their tombstone, not the witty epitaph Franklin penned but simply Benjamin and Deborah Franklin. Truly, Franklin was a man who lived larger-than-life but who also came from a most-modest beginning, almost starving when he was a young teen. After establishing himself as a writer, Franklin can also be remembered for attempting to keep a list of virtues when he wrote The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Within this text, he strived to perfectly keep each virtue for just a few days. However, he quickly realized he could not keep himself from breaking the virtues, even for a single day. Living sinless was Impossible!
We will Never be ‘good’ enough to gain access to paradise, to heaven, or to eternity with Holy God.
Thus, the question becomes less about us trying to keep the law of God perfectly & more about worshipping and honoring the HOLY ONE WHO DID!
- You and I (we)—All of us need Jesus!
- We (both of us)—Are in desperate need of a Savior!
From conception to the grave, none of us can be, remain, nor can walk—squeaky clean of all sinful thoughts, actions, words, or reactions. It is Impossible!
However, One did; JESUS DID!
Since the Creator, Almighty God, sent His only begotten Son—JESUS—to earth:
- To live among us,
- To live as a sinless Son of man,
- To be born to a woman and born of God,
Because JESUS came to offer HIMSELF as the sinless, perfect, once-for-all sacrifice on the cross,
&
Because JESUS died and was buried in the tomb,
&
Since ALMIGHTY GOD rolled away the stone from the tomb on the third day after JESUS’ death,
&
Because JESUS arose, defeating death & walked out alive!
- We can come to receive HIS gift of salvation for our sins & receive eternal life. &
- We can receive access into eternity within HIS presence. &
- We can receive the gift of having our names recorded in the Lamb’s book of life!
Our gift of salvation is not because we can remain sinless or do enough good works to make ourselves clean; rather, it is because our sins have been covered by the precious blood of JESUS CHRIST!
His Word states all are sinful.
- But praise God, we are able to accept, believe in, and confess our faith in Jesus.
- And praise the Father, we will one day be in His presence because our names are recorded there.
John, bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, was given a vision from God.
“I saw no temple in it,
(The Revelation to John 21: 22-27 NASB)
for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God has illumined it,
and its lamp is the Lamb.
The nations will walk by its light,
and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed;
and they will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it;
and nothing unclean,
and no one who practices abomination and lying,
shall ever come into it,
but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
- We are Never ‘good’ enough to enter there.
- We will Never be ‘good’ enough to stop sinning.
Our names must be “written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
God’s salvation is necessary.
Thus the question remains quite simple: Has the Son of God, the Lamb of God, recorded your name in His book, “in the Lamb’s book of life”?