The Good & The Bad

Posted: September 21st, 2011 Category: Christianity, Common Sense

Along with degrees awarded by accredited institutions of higher learning I have earned one other less distinguished lifetime achievement award, which I’ve used more than any of the rest. Some of you may also be eligible for this award, which is an MSE degree. No, no it has nothing to do with science or engineering, it’s a “Master of Spiritual Excuses” designation. Those of us who’ve earned this lifetime achievement award, have coined many popular phrases over the centuries. The first and most common, which we reserve for one big day in the future is the: “I’m a good person” excuse. By now this is surely registered in some library as the foundation for empirical misunderstanding and hopeful entitlement. This character designation is great if we only expect to be judged by our peers, but it’s value ends there. This, more than our other excuses, is thought to be a great get-in-free card when we reach our round of final answers for jeopardy judgement day. The tough truth is, that there is no free ticket to heaven. Only one guy was ever good enough to pass right over the application and entrance requirements for admission, the rest of us, quite simply can’t ever make the final cut without some significant help, counseling and commitments. What’s even more confusing is that there are very few of us who are bad enough to be denied entry based entirely on those actions either! So what can we do?

“John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49, 50 ESV). Doing what we believe Jesus would have us do is a beginning, but being for Jesus isn’t quite enough either. The next step is harder. It comes with a core understanding of the concept of believing. Beliefs are born out of the following fundamental practices; testimony, experience, evidence, as well as logic and wisdom. So to believe in Jesus, we must believe the Word of God (the bible), as our testimony and evidence. Experience we gain on our own. We must also learn to decipher the logic and wisdom of our beliefs through Faith which functionally isn’t a matter of “degrees”, it’s all or nothing. We can’t “kinda” believe in God unless we’re willing for God to “kinda” believe in us, which won’t get us very far. We need completely believe in Him. The last step comes in knowing God well enough to actually follow His lead, for when we truly believe, we won’t allow anything on this earth to come between us and this, our most important belief.

JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE