You are not good enough
Have you ever felt great relief from hearing news that would bring you a great cost, or significant difficulty and change in your life? Would you call those; good news? It is unlikely. Unless those news came as a solution to a previous set of bad news. No one looks forward with excitement to excruciating physical pain, fatigue, and nausea... Unless, it is the solution to a devastating problem, the way chemotherapy is to cancer.
The only reason anyone ever signs up for chemo, is because they are absolutely convinced that they will soon die a painful death, if they don't.
The good news of God is the cure you require. And the only reason you might not take it is because you don't think you have spiritual cancer.
The easiest statement that can be made about you is that you are the absolute worst person you know. Worse than that guy at work you don't like, that hypocrite family member. Yes, worse than Hitler.
I don't know you, but I know myself and some other really respectable people, and my safe assumption is simply that you are no better than I or them.
Whether you enjoy pointing out your boss's flaws, always behind their back, yet have never showed gratitude for your job, ignoring the fact that if truth be told, you waste a lot their money with your lack of productivity, which includes the aforementioned character assassination sessions...
Maybe you spend your evenings in front of a monitor spewing out pornography, made on the backs (and fronts) of those whose worse fear is having their own children follow in their footsteps...
Maybe you just entertain fantasies about your "friends", your neighbors, your students or even strangers. Nothing much, just fleeting thoughts. You are not a monster...
Perhaps you are that "friend", and you don't even mind the attention. Maybe your thoughts in front of the mirror reveal there is more planning to that outfit than meets the eye. Maybe your getting in shape isn't really about health or your significant other, but about impressing someone else... Or a bunch of someone elses.
Maybe you can't stop buying... Really, you can't. There is always a project, a car, a house, some tool, gizmo or knickknack that serves as the thing you really need, but only until it is yours.
Maybe you're a fighter, but only with a weaker opponent, like your spouse... The stresses of life will do that...
You might be a bully, but all grown up. Intellectual sparring is what you might call it. But it really is the act of convincing yourself you are alright... By contrast with your victim.
Maybe your drug of choice is an actual drug. You're just winding down, right? It relaxes you. What's wrong with tuning out the dreaded reality...
Maybe you have a parent, or friend who could benefit the world from your simple company once in a while. But hey - insert favorite TV show or sport - is on tonight... And tomorrow night, too.
Maybe you are an arrogant driver... an envious friend always a tad giddy with the misfortune of others... the humble guy who can't stop reminding others... a mocker to whom everything is a joke, even if her life is falling apart... The nice neighbor with the forked tongue... The giver, with 2 sponsored children, 3 good samaritan stories, a dash of "if I had more money I would do this and that" all sitting atop of a mountain of self delusion.
Or maybe you are the very worst kind of person. The one who can't find himself in these words. The one to whom the word sin, belongs in romance novels or out of touch seniors’ crusty lips.
The reason you are all or some of this plus an ocean of filth more, is because you have believed the greatest lie ever devised... The lie that you are good. How ironic isn't it? That all of the garbage of humanity is either caused by, or a self medication for the false belief that we have it all together.
Look, you are not good. You are not even good enough for yourself. You certainly are not good enough for God. And deep down... you know it, or you wouldn't work so hard at hiding all that slime.
How scary is that? Very. I know. But it is true.
That's it for the bad news. If you have read this far and find yourself disagreeing or offended by these words, then please stop. What follows is entirely useless to you. If there is credence left in these words, let me urge you to not be just offended. Be very offended, be insulted and indignant. Be unrelenting in proving these claims false. Go live your life in such a way as to remove any doubt that these words define you.
If you accept these claims as true, but oppose the view that this reality is viciously malignant to your existence, then I plead with you; go deeper. Immerse yourself in your desire. Stop living by chance and dive in. Be honest about where you satisfy your pleasures. List them. Seek them further. Hunt for satisfaction. Define your happiness in concrete goals and go after them. Achieve, win, accomplish, satisfy. Take the burden of your fulfillment upon your back, choose a course and run. Don't stop. Go find the end of the rope. The worst thing you can do is continue the cycle of illusion that is the careful balance of just enough dung to allow you to continue to believe that you're good.
If you are at the end of the rope, let me welcome you. This website is for you. In fact, everything you see and experience in the universe is for you, too.
You are very close to being able to enjoy that for which you were created.
Good news, please!
"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ."
- Romans 8:1
What?! This sounds like religion...
No. This is straight from the word of God. It does not say that those who are good are not condemned. It does not say that the religious are not condemned. It does not say that those who don't sin are not condemned. It does not say that those who dress up on Sundays and neatly part their hair and carry a heavy book and a frown are not condemned. It does say; those who are in Christ are not condemned.
There IS a creator. And His plan for our life is better than ours. Your plan got you exactly where you are. No more, no less. The reason a thief or a rapist are closer to finding God (that is; accepting Him and His will) is because the inadequacy of their plan is that much more obvious to them. When Jesus says; the poor and the hungry will be blessed, He is not telling us to go get in debt and starve ourselves. He is saying: when you are close to your own end, you are that much nearer to what God has prepared for you.
None of the ugly facts depicted above escape any group of human beings. Every nun, priest, preacher, philosopher, prophet, political figure, and old lady have enough dirt on them to feel the same discomfort that you now feel. It isn't our actions that separate us, but our cure.
Who is this Christ Jesus?
He is the container of our chemotherapy. Broken on a trash heap in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago, poured out on dirt and mixed with the spit of people like you and me; people who thought they were good enough.
That undeserved event was needed so that while fully deserving of condemnation, we might be saved. Saved from the bondage to the realities described above. On that cross, a holy God's wrath against sin and His love for mankind were expressed simultaneously. For the first time since the beginning of time, a totally innocent man experienced unjustified punishment. And for the first time, we, a guilty self serving incurable lot of hypocrites, were given a free pass to a place that we have no ability of earning our way into; the arms of a loving Creator and Father.
Believe it. Experience it. Live it, and don’t look back, except to reach out to those whose lives are lived on the altar of darkness. When you do, you will comprehend the purpose of your existence, and begin to exercise love as defined and exemplified by its Maker.
This cure was never meant to be an ideology or a philosophy. It has become that to those who prefer to fashion their God out of a small minded necessity to control others and their own fears.
Look around you right now. Do it... Take a breath. Feel your heart beat.
Dwell on the ridiculous awesomeness of it all.
Praise the One responsible. Get to know Him.
You see, God is not a good idea. God is not an idea, at all.