February 7, 2013

Rejected At Heaven's Door?

by Terry Rush

Since the days of Adam and Eve and the initial sin in the Garden of Eden, mankind has lived impaired. We are a broken sort. No one is exempt.

For the sake of theme of this article, I will divide mankind into two camps; (1) those impaired who attend church, and (2) the impaired who don't. Regardless of compartment in which you fit, we will all be better off if we will confess that we are all broken beyond human repair.

For any who are a part of the church system and have long forgotten that you are not right with God by self-acclamation and effort, shame on us. We are never right unless Jesus makes us right… II Cor. 5:21.

Yet, it is the latter… the broken ones who feel they aren't good enough to be a part of the religious system that I address. There are those who stay away from churches and faith and God because they believe themselves to be worthy only of complete rejection.

Not the case.

I am more worthy of complete rejection than any reader of this article. I am the one who is more failure than accomplishment. So how do I continue? It is never because of the goodness of me; for I have none. It is always because of the righteousness of Jesus. He handed everything right about himself over to any who would accept such from the cross. He absorbed our bad.

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me," wrote the apostle Paul. So it is with us.

We are to die to self for we cannot get this stubborn and rebellious flesh to conform to the higher life. Everyone is good enough to go to heaven…only through Jesus… for none of us are good enough to go to heaven… on our own goodness…. not even the preachers.