“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment...” (Isaiah 64:6)
Beloved, Accepting that everyone has failed to live up to God’s standard is a hard pill to swallow. Many of us try to soften the blow by keeping score; that is we attempt to keep a running count of the good things we have done and then either compare this list to a smaller list of bad things or compare ourselves to others whom we know are worse off. Our intent is to claim acceptability before God with our “good works.” Fortunately for us, God does not keep score this way. God has without any hesitation told us that not only have we ALL fallen short of His standard, but anything that we esteem as good or acceptable is disgusting in His sight. In short, what we believe to be worthy of keeping score nauseates God. So, how is that good? Simply, because God has exposed this about us, we don’t have to try and live up to a standard that we will never achieve. We don’t have to keep score, manage how many “goods” we have as opposed to how many “bads” or continually search for someone who is worse off than us; we just have to accept what God says about us. Furthermore, we cannot please God with what we do, no matter how good we think it is. We can, however; be pleasing to God by who we become; that is by asking God to adopt us as His child. Make no mistake, God does this simply because of who He is and not because of whether we are good or not. Frankly, as far as God is concerned we are already bad, so don’t even try to ignore this fact. But, God does tell us that if we will repent (turn back to Him from our lifestyle of prideful rebellion) that He will regenerate us into something brand new! By the way, new means thoroughly NEW in that we will have no more uncleanness or filthiness, only the righteousness that the blood of Jesus provides for those who will accept these things. Do you still think that there is something good in you? If there is, it is because God put it there and not because you did it on your own.
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