Well, I'm Not As Bad As She Is!

COMMENTS

A question in my Bible study this week caused me to start thinking about how we all compare ourselves with other people.  Even though it wasn’t the point of the question, my thoughts wandered to sin and how easy it is for me to dismiss it with the above statement: “Well, I’m not as bad as she is!”

 

NOTES

I’ve been told all my life that, in God’s eyes, sin is sin.  For Him, there are no “levels” or “degrees”.  SIN IS SIN.  If I’m honest, my human mind cannot wrap itself around that thought.  I don’t care what you say, that lie I told or the pen I took (stole) from work in no way compares to the atrocities that Hitler committed in the 1930s and 1940s.  I’M NOT AS BAD AS HE WAS!

As I pondered all of this, I realized that I’ve actually been asking the wrong question.  The question is not, “How bad is my sin?” or “Is my sin worse than that of someone else?”  The question is, “Am I a sinner?” 

Many people believe that they should be allowed into heaven if their good deeds outweigh their bad.  So, what’s the cutoff point?  51% Good Deeds to 49% Bad Deeds?  60% to 40%?  75% to 25%?  What if we look at numbers instead of percentages.  50 or fewer sins gets you in?  1000 or fewer gets you in?  Taking the latter number, I get in if I have 999 sins, but I go to hell if I have 1001?  I can already hear the cries of how unjust this “arbitrary” number is!

Our God is a holy and righteous and just God.  Holiness, righteousness, and justice demand that a penalty be paid when a sin is committed.  Even one.  So, comparisons must be thrown out the window.  Whether or not I’m a sinner has nothing to do with how I compare with anyone else.  If I have committed even one sin, I have disqualified myself from Heaven and its perfection; and I have earned hell.  And I will be bold enough to say that every one of us has committed MANY more than one sin!

So, there you go.  Maybe I’m not as bad as “she” is or as Hitler is.  But is that an excuse?  Does that make any difference at all?  Bottom line:  No.  I’m still a sinner.  I still deserve hell.  I still don’t deserve heaven.

Now for the GOOD NEWS!!  God loves me enough that He wants me there anyway!  Go figure!  So the Three-in-One decided that Jesus would come in human form—100% God and 100% man—and pay the penalty for me.  I don’t have to earn it (which is good because I can’t earn it anyway).  I didn’t even ask for it.  It’s a gift, and all I have to do is accept it.  I can pay the penalty in hell, or I can accept His gift and spend eternity in Heaven with Him.  Why in the world would I refuse a gift like that?!

Philippians 3:12 - 4:1

COMMENTS

I want to be like Jesus.  But do I want that more than I want to be thin, or pretty, or have nice things, or etc., etc., etc.?  Which do I spend my time thinking about?  Which is more likely to be the force behind my decisions today?  Does it bother me more when I eat a big piece of cake with ice cream or when I spend little or no time with my God?  Yikes, Lord….

NOTES

Having just finished his discourse on knowing Christ and expressing his desire to be like Jesus, Paul now quickly states that he’s not there yet.  (Boy, can I identify with that.)  However, he’s not discouraged.   In verse 13 he says that he’s “forgetting what is behind”—his hopes in a false salvation (works) and his failure to please God, even to the point of persecuting God’s church.  Instead, he is motivated to pursue the goal of Christ-likeness even harder.  In verse 12 he “presses on”; in verse 13 he is “straining toward”; in verse 14 he “press[es] on toward” what God has for him.  Those are not casual verbs; they are action verbs implying strong actions, strong motivations.

I particularly like verse 12:

“but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

This verse clearly states that God has a purpose for my life.  When He “took hold” of me, He had something or somethings in mind.  Clearly, some of them are specified in the previous verses, but I believe that He has specific ideas in mind for me alone.  I need to pursue them as intensely as Paul did.

Finally, in verses 18 and 19 Paul weeps for those who do not know Christ.  He says they are “enemies of the cross of Christ”.  Their destiny, what they worship, and that in which they take pride are all worth nothing.  They are earthly things—hay and stubble that will be burned up at the judgment.  No wonder Paul was in tears—such loss!  He ends this section of his letter on a joyful note, however, reminding us that we have heaven and a Savior and that we will—one day—have glorious bodies like His.

If that’s not motivation to “stand firm in the Lord” (4:1), I don’t know what is!