Sometimes, when I am reading the Bible, I think to myself, "How could they do that to God?" Let's stop right there. Who is "they"? Well you can pick just about any person in the Bible. You can start with Adam, move right along to the Israelites, pause with David, and then move on to Peter. Sometimes, I guess I think that I am different somehow. That given the same set of circumstances, I would have done better. I would never have hurt God the way that these people did, after He had shown them so much love and faithfulness. But I have to stop right there.. mainly because God is bringing me to my knees. He is reminding me that I am just like these people in the Bible.
Think about Adam and Eve. God created them for fellowship with Him. He created the most beautiful place for them to live and provided for all of their needs. All He wanted was for them to not eat the fruit of a certain tree. He even told them what would happen if they ate of this particular fruit, and it wasn't pretty. He told them that they would die. The death God was talking about here not only lent itself to the physical death of the body, but more importantly, the ultimate death, which is separation from God. Well along comes this beautiful serpent. I know we like to think of serpents as nasty and slimy, but really I think this serpent was probably the most beautiful creature in all of Eden. And why wouldn't he be? After all, the Bible says Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. He totally suckered Eve. He told her, "Really, God told you not to eat of this fruit! The audacity! God knows if you eat this fruit, you will be like Him, knowing good from evil. Heck, you will be like gods yourselves!" Well in that moment, Eve made a choice. She decided that she didn't believe God. Not only did she decide that she didn't believe Him, she also decided to disobey Him and Adam went right along with it. Now, at this moment, I am thinking to myself, "How could she not believe God! How could she disobey her creator!" And then all of a sudden I snap back into reality and I think, "Wow! How many times have I gone through times of unbelief, how many times have I disobeyed God?" Why do we do this? Why do we separate ourselves from the people of the Bible. Don't we all have the same sinful nature? OF COURSE! So who am I, to pass judgment on these people! I praise God that He reminds me, when I start thinking that somehow I am better, that somehow there is good in me, that no one is righteous, no not one! We are all evil. Evil to the core. We are born into sin and our whole life there will be sin in our life. But sin doesn't have to be our master. We can have victory in Christ Jesus. His blood covers our sins, all of them! No matter how small or how great, we are forgiven. Romans 3:23-26 says,
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Now those are a lot of big words! But basically I believe it boils down to this for me. God knew that the only way we could come to him was through a blood sacrifice. Not of lambs, or bulls, or any other animal. But only through the blood of His only Son could we be justified. Someone's blood had to be shed, and because He loves us so much, He didn't want it to be ours. It couldn't be ours anyway. We aren't holy or righteous enough. We aren't perfect. But thank God that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice that could atone an entire world's sins: past, present, and future. God took it a step further. He did all of this and then He decided it would cost us nothing. We wouldn't have to do anything. I think He made it free because He knew we could never ever do enough to earn it. I think He made it free because He loves us that much. All we have to do is recognize that we are sinners and know that we can not get to Heaven on our own merit. We can do nothing. We are nothing, apart from Him. The next step is to simply confess and believe with our heart. An excerpt from the Roman Road to Salvation says this,
A person receives God's free gift of love and life by placing faith in Jesus
Christ. To believe is simply to take God at His word. With our heart
(whole believing) we believe that Jesus is God's Son who died for our sin
on the cross and arose from the grave to live in us as Savior and Lord.
I think that sometimes, we try to make this hard. The world will tell you that nothing is free. That you can't get something for nothing. We try to convince ourselves that we have to do something to earn our salvation. Well let me tell you what God says in the Bible.. We are saved FOR good works, not BY good works. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us! He didn't wait until we were a little more holy or a little more righteous, and he certainly didn't wait until we were perfect. He died for us while we were still dirty rotten sinners. He loves me and He loves you. He loves you so much He pursues you. I don't think He expects us to do a thing. He comes to us.
Let's go back to Adam and Eve in the garden. When they had sinned against Him, God didn't wait for them to come looking for Him. He came looking for them! Isn't that the most amazing thing! He could have totally written us off. He could have just destroyed this earth after that first sin and said well that didn't work out, so oh well! I believe God knew before He even created man that we would give in to sin. Now let me stop right there, because some of you are probably thinking, "Well why did God even put that tree in the garden anyway if He knew it would lead to sin?" And I think the answer to that question is simple. God didn't create robots. He knew He had to give us free will. What's free will without choices? God had to give Adam a choice in order for Adam to exert his free will. And guess what, we have the freedom to either accept Christ as our Savior, or deny Him. What do you choose today?
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