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Have you asked these questions to yourself before? Am I really good? As in,
perfectly good? What is the standard of being good?
One of the definitions in the Merriam Webster of good is "moral perfection".
And that means morally upright and pure from start to finish.
How can one say that one is 'good'?
Well, many overlook the fact of where the standard of goodness comes from. We
have the Bible as our basis from where we can find all of these things.
Firstly, God created the heavens and the earth with pure and utter goodness.
The man was in perfect fellowship with God. But man chose to define what is
good and evil in their eyes and so started the moral decay. Many of us define
good and evil based on our standards. By the way, our standard is so low.
As Isaiah 64:6 is saying,
"We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away."
Our goodness in the sight of God is all trash. Apart from God, all things
cannot match the goodness that God has set forth.
Romans 3:23 ESV,
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"
You and I are always falling short of doing the right things before God. Two
things that we need to remember: we are lacking and we are also exceeding.
1. Lacking in understanding -
Hosea 4:6 ESV "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have
rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have
forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children."
2. Exceeding in weight -
Psalms 38:4 ESV "For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy
burden, they are too heavy for me."
We lack knowledge and wisdom on how we ought to live our lives because we
don't know God at all.
There is a story about a bus driver who happens to stop after seeing an old
lady waiting eagerly for his bus to arrive. The bus driver gave her a
seat. Now, in your own opinion, was it a good thing to do?
Actually, no. As a matter of fact, he was fired for doing so. You know why
Because he gave his seat to the lady- and that's the driver's seat! Now, in
our lives, we fail to see the truth because we don't get to know God more and
more in our lives. We fail to see the reality of our sickness and corruption
in our personal lives because we are contented with what our eyes please to
do.
But the question tonight is - Are those things that we do daily please God?
Do we really please God in our day to day affairs?
Again Psalms 38:4 ESV "For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy
burden, they are too heavy for me."
Without God transforming us and changing us from glory to glory, we will still
be the same. Because the end of the matter is that all of us here deserve to
die- physically and in fact, we are already dead spiritually. God sees us as
dead- spiritually and morally dead.
Ephesians 2:1 ESV "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins,..."
Trespass in Hebrew means Pesha: Break of trust
Sin in Hebrew means Khata: Missing the goal/mark
Now, if we look closely, over and over again, man has failed to live up
to be a faithful covenant partner of God- to live righteous lives and in
harmony with God. We have also failed considerably in hitting the goal - of
glorifying God in Spirit and in truth, in our daily lives. And so, what is
God's judgment on our failures?
Death.
And that death is our wages. It is our payment for our moral failures.
Romans 6:23 ESV " For the wages of sin is death..."
Do you know when you'll die?
No, you don't.
Are you ready to die?
If you're not in Christ, I believe you will never be ready. In fact, you will
fear death.
But for those whose lives God has changed, whose hearts God has been
transforming, they will even scoff at it.
As to what 1 Cor 15:55 ESV says "O death, where is your victory? O death,
where is your sting?"
Knowing that we are a total failure when it comes to righteous living and that
we are not capable of paying our wages, what are we going to do?
Well, God's love, grace, and mercy are just awesome. He sent His one and only
Son Jesus Christ in order for us to be legally freed from the bondage of sin
and death. Instead of us, it was Jesus. We broke the law, Jesus paid the fine.
Now all you need to do is to transfer your trust from yourself to Jesus.
If you are to be thrown from 30000 feet above sea level, you cannot save
yourself by flapping your wings and declare in yourself that you can be
saved. No! What you need to do is to trust in your parachute that it is
going to do wonders when it comes to saving your life.
The same is true with God. You need to transfer your trust from yourself to
Jesus. Repent and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all it takes for you
to be saved and to be renewed and transformed. The goodness that will, later
on, happen in your life is no longer based on your standard but on the high
standard of God.
All for His glory alone, forever and ever!
Photo by: Jaime Legaspino
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