Utterly Helpless

01/01/07

…our acquittal is not based on our good deeds.
It is based on our faith… Romans 3:27 (NLT)

Utterly helpless…sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it? What a way to start a New Year’s message…Where do we go from there? STRAIGHT TO THE TOP!

Paul writes in Romans 5:6, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” God’s Word talks clearly about how utterly helpless we are when we try to be what we are not--and how totally capable God is in making us right in His sight because of what His Son, Jesus Christ, died to give all of us! We can’t be good at games in which we don’t possess the skills to compete, anymore than we can be good enough to make our way into Heaven by our own efforts…try as we might! We can spend our whole lives attempting this impossible feat, but in the end, we will lose the game of life if we are not willing to depend on the One who knows the answers--the One who paved the way Home by covering all our mistakes in His blood.

Jesus Christ is the Master of this game called Life. He has all the knowledge we will ever need, and He is willing to provide it to us if we will simply call upon Him in our utter helplessness. The problem is we get fooled in our thinking because there are things we are very good at, all of us, and we can get puffed up. We think that if we are good at this thing, or that thing, we can probably devise some scheme or drum up some special effort that will make us good enough to slide through the gates of Heaven in the same way, with our own blood, sweat and tears…but it will never happen. We will fall short…like it or not, it’s guaranteed.

“But no, you won’t listen. So you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself because of your stubbornness…there is going to come a day of judgment when God, the just judge of all the world, will judge all people according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who persist in doing what is good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves…” Romans 2:5,6,7,8 (NLT) We can mistakenly read this Scripture and see the, “what they have done” and the “persist in doing what is good” part, and we can start to think we have a shot at it in our own strength, and with our own abilities. But to finish out what Paul is writing here, we have to include the “seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers” part. That’s the looking to Jesus part, plain and simple. God calls that part “good.” God’s wrath will be “on those who live for themselves.” Our Father doesn’t want the good stuff that we decide is good--He wants our hearts—hearts that seek after His glory and honor and immortality.

Jesus didn’t die for good people--He died for sinners. We can seemingly be excelling at being a good person, and seemingly be winning at this game of life, but when we get to judgment day we will find out that we had all the wrong answers.

Jesus doesn’t expect us to win this one, because He already did.

It’s our move…will it be towards Him?