By Titto Thomas
An old miserly lady died and reached the gates of heaven. This lady when she was alive never did a good thing. At the gate an angel of the Lord asked her “What makes you worthy to enter here”. The lady recollected her days on the earth and she couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to tell the angel, she had not done one good deed, but suddenly she hit gold. She immediately looked up at the angel’s face and replied “ There was this poor, hungry beggar who had come knocking at my house. Feeling sympathy for the man, I gave him 10 cents.” The angel replied “ Alright let me go tell God about this, wait here”. After a couple of minutes the angel returned with something in his hand. Looking at the lady he said “ Here is your 10 cents and that’s the way to hell!!!
The gist of this hilarious story has a very important implication. We all think that there are at least some things right in our lives. We tell ourselves “We are ok, we ain’t that bad”. We use it as our trump card all the time, our song of consolation. But how good is good and how bad is bad. During the tribunal of a formal Rwandan general convicted for genocide, the judge, after reading through his crime of raping, torturing, murdering and disfiguring men, woman and children, asked him how he could do all of this. The general replied “ I believe I was doing right”.
No we might not have done all that the above general did, but does that makes us perfect creatures. I did a particular subject in my third semester of engineering called thermodynamics. For the first internals 99% of the class failed and as we were discussing the results very proudly remarking how a particular student with 30 out of hundred was the highest in our hostel, another student from a different branch remarked “ Hey all of you guys failed, then why do u care who did better than the other”.
In our personal lives too when we have done good we feel very confident to enter God’s presence and I believe this is the biggest mistake we can make when we approach God. The bible says that there is nothing good in us, the implication then being that God does not expect anything good from us. Remember there is nothing good that we can do that makes us worthy for God. It was his doing that made us righteous. Even the faith that we had to get saved was his gift. Where then is room for boasting, for exalting yourself.
A prayer I leave with you. “Father your word says that all our righteousness is like filthy rags before you, so I come to you not because of what I have done but I am clothing myself with Jesus who is my righteousness. I realize that there is nothing good in me, if there is anything good in me it is because you have put it there. Amen”
Amen \o/\O/\o/
Amen. All by His grace!
You are so right!!!
Godbless
An awesome post! I love thermodynamics example…haha =) You hit the nail.
As I said earlier somewhere, in Hinduism we used to believe self was divine. They even use a capital S for self. And their goal is to discover and pursue this divine Self that is within them.
BUT Thank God salvation isn’t dependent on us but on the finished work of Jesus! Hallelu Yah! We have GOD-confidence and there is no weakness in that! We can approach God Who has become our Abba!
Sidharth
Good post.
There are also the situations in which people think that just because they have been blessed in some way by God in an area of their lives, they must have done something right.
That’s not how it is in my opinion. There is nothing that we can do right, as you so correctly pointed out in this post.
Shalom.
But Isaiah, make no mistake. Even though our standing with Him is His doing. Walking into His blessings of is only by being willing and obedient.
Isaiah 1:19
Sid
Sidhu,
I do agree with your point.
However, I was pointing to the fact that some think that when they receive blessings, they think that it must be because they have prayed in the right way, or the $2 they gave to the beggar the other day got them that.
Yes, there’s a degree of truth to that, perhaps, but it will be erroneous to think that the sole reason for the blessings is due to their deeds.
It is Christ’s finished work on the cross.
Just my 2 cents.
Yeah I do understand what you mean =)
Sidhu
Awesome Post….YA all be blessed and you have my BEst,keep pression on guys until we see God FACE To FACE,……Love ya ALL ,!!