Alva Review-Courier -

Religion – being good enough for God to accept us. Many do turn to religion … trying to always behave and say the perfect things. So that hopefully, their holy God will be obliged to help them handle the fears and horrible problems in life. But down deep, each of us know ourselves well enough to have to admit, “Being perfect all the time – that just ain’t possible!”

That’s true – and the very reason why religion simply does not work. For it to work would mean that we can do enough and say enough right things to get God Almighty to say, “Okay, excellent! You have managed to balance the bad thoughts and behavior in your life with enough good deeds. You’ve been able to make yourself good enough for my standards, and now I will help you.”

And this may sound logical to our human ears – doing enough good things to counteract all our bad. But there is a huge problem with that man-made philosophy: According to the Bible, there is absolutely not one shred of good in you and me! “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away” (Isaiah 64:6). Ouch!

But let’s return to looking at the ways people attempt to make God like them. And there are a lot of methods. Church attendance – “I’ve got attendance pins that hang down past my knees!” No lying. No stealing. No adultery … yep, they know it’s off the table if they are going to have His favor. Giving money … oh, yeah, that is a big one. Seems some think the more you give to the church, the closer God leans His ear to hear your prayers. The list of ways to try to force God can go on and on.

Confused, irritated, or amused at our naiveté by now? Okay, but please read on. We have two questions for you to consider.

Question 1: Why would that verse we quoted from Isaiah be written in Scripture if it is not true? Could it be that our sin is actually so black, and so humongous that we can never do enough to ‘balance the scales?’ Yes folks, that is exactly what is being said in that verse.

Question 2: If you and I could actually do what it takes to rescue ourselves, then why did Jesus Christ volunteer to die on the cross – while totally sinless – to balance the scales for us? That would be an absolutely needless death on the part of an all-knowing Jesus.

So, what’s left? The only thing left is to trust in a Paid-In-Full experience, thru what Jesus did for us.

It’s something to chew on, folks. We definitely need to be sure that our beliefs will hold up with our Creator at our death. You want to rely on your religion, or the sacrifice Jesus made for you?

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