I recently completed a trek across the United States by automobile, three times in just thirty days, a total of six thousand miles.
I suppose it was during those rare moments trapped in a car for hours on end, seeing a different city every few hundred miles, viewing the countless lives passing by, that I began to consider the amazing grace that the Lord of Heaven has for human beings.
We have this perplexing problem as dwellers of this earth that universally we seem to think that we are worthy of heaven by virtue of our good works outweighing our bad.
I have been asked numerous times by friends and those who have attended my lectures, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The answer to that question is simply that there really are no good people. Now before you cancel your subscription to my Kindle Blog, write me a letter or worse stop reading the rest of this article, hear me out.
This is not my opinion, for I personally think that everyone has the potential for good and that everyone should be allowed into heaven, that is of course if they want to go there.
The opnion then that there are truly no good people comes from the Bible, the Word of God. It is the truth of His word that in His righteous observation, there are no good human beings, for all of us have sinned and come up short of His Glorious Perfection.
Psalms 14:3 They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
The reason that Jesus found it necessary to come to the earth and live and die as a man, was that all men need a Savior and cannot redeem or save themselves. If there was any way that a human being could redeem theirself, then Jesus would not have needed to make the great sacrifice that He accomplished for all of us.
The Bible makes it clear that when Jesus died, He was paying for the sin of every human being throughout all time upon the earth. His one sacrifice paid the debt that all men owe to God for their failure to perfectly keep His law. The Bible says that a simple trust in these facts and an expression of that faith by a changed life, cleanses the record of a persons and makes them perfect as though they had never sinned.
Before I go any further, let us contemplate that last statement. When we believe that Jesus death on the Cross paid for all of our sins, and we live the rest of our life like we believe that, we are made perfect. Think about that for a moment. From the first moment you believe in Jesus death and resurrection you exist forever as a perfect being.
You see, only perfect people make it to heaven. Not mostly perfect, or people more good than bad. Only the absolute perfect make it into heaven. This is what God’s Word declares, it is not my own personal opinion. Knowing the terrors of hell, I would allow everyone to escape that horrible place, if it were up to me. The thought that a person can live their entire life full of sin and dissobedience to God but in a single moment, by simple faith in Jesus Cross, have their life of sin eliminated, is beyond my ability to comprehend. How is this possible? I don’t understand it, but that is nevertheless the incredible truth that the Bible declares to us.
The amazing fact is that the Bible teaches that when a person puts all of their trust in Jesus sacrifice on the Cross, they become totally and completely perfect in the sight of God. Not just for the past or present sins of their life, but even all those sins they commit for the rest of their life.
1 John 1:7 … the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
It is for certain that all those who do make it to heaven will understand with certainty that they do not deserve to be in that wonderful place. All who arrive in heaven will understand that It was completely because of Jesus that they are in heaven and that they personally had nothing to do with being in their wonderful eternal home.
I have discovered as a fact of knowing Jesus for so many years, that the longer I live, the more aware I am that I do not deserve the Lord’s love, and forgiveness. I am keenly aware of how many times every single day I fall so short of being the man I should be. As Paul put it in Romans chapter 7, “The more that I try to do good, the more I seem to do wrong.“
If a person dissagrees with the whole premise that they are unworthy of Heaven then one thing is certain, at that point in their life they have not yet come to the place where they have seen the total depravity of their heart the way that God sees. It is over the course of a person’s life time that they begin to see just how corrupt and flawed they are and for some, they arrive at a place where they long for a Savior, someone to purify their dark heart and expunge their record of sin.
I suppose this is what Jesus meant when He said that He did not come to save the righteous but the sinner. He certainly did not intend that there were some who were already righteous enough that they did not need a savior, since all men are sinners. Jesus meant that there are some people who view themselves as already being righteous enough for God to accept and that under that self righteous observation, it is impossible for Jesus to save them. Jesus came only for those who already know they are sinners and that what they need is someone to help them out of their hopeless situation.
Many of the years that a person will spend upon this earth during their lifetime are years spent in not yet reaching the place of destitution of soul. It is by the loving kindness of the Lord that He permits us to suffer trial after trial until we find ourselves in need of a great Savior. God can do nothing for us until we first find ourselves with nothing and in desperate need of everything.
It is a part of the fallen human condition that we seem to believe that we have the ability to be self sufficient. Even a small child will arrive at a place of independence in their life where they will declare to their parent, “Mother I would rather do it myself”. We label those most successful in this world by calling them “Self made men”. We honor those who climb to the top regarding no one else but themselves by writing books with titles such as “Looking out for number one”, and other such self edifying captions that declare the virtues of personal independence.
In my recent travels, I came to the deep realization that not only do I not want to remain independant of Jesus power over my life, but that when I try to order and control my own life, i make a terrible mess of everything. Even in those many days of personal rebellion, the Lord had never cast me aside, never gave up on this desperate man. He waited ever so patiently for me to get to the end of myself and turn to Him in desperation for His help. When I arrived at that day, he was not only willing to help, but I found that He had been watching and waiting for me to want Him. Just as the Father of the Prodigal son watched everyday for the silhouette of his son to appear on the hilltop.
If it were not for the words of the Bible that describe this incredible undeserved Grace of God, I would have never believed it. The reality is that I have been living under this Grace for more than 35 years and I can never get enough of it’s incredible comfort and peace.
It is a wonderful day when a person arrives at self desperation and begins looking up for the first time. When self worth is gone, the darkness of the heart is seen, and the need for a Great God to deliver a soul from the destiny of Hell becomes reality. It is then a person really begins to live and enjoy the purpose for which they were created. All the days allotted to us in this life are so that we might find our God and in a moment of broken humility cry out to Him for mercy and obtain all mercy and forgiveness.
When that moment arrives, peace comes flooding into our heart and for the first time in our short existence on this earth, we find the reason for our life and the purpose for our being here. Grace so amazing, but none the less, all true.
Rob Robinson
