Tag Archives: good news

It is the ultimate in imposter syndrome. What if my true nature was exposed to the world? What if I stood before everyone like the Emperor without any clothes?

Have you ever worried about exposure? What if the most shameful acts were exposed to the world? What if your darkest fantasies were displayed on a movie screen for all to see?

And lets keep going. Do you ever just hope that you are “good enough” to stand before God after your death?

And you quickly try to put it out of your mind because there is a part of you deep inside that tells you that there is no way God will accept you.

What if you could have a do-over? If you could live your life again and avoid all of the shame and misery and guilt, how great would that be!

Or Perhaps you could live again and do over all of those times you didn’t act in love or in kindness, where the cruelty of your heart broke through the carefully constructed wall around your soul and wounded the ones you love the most.

But there is a part of you that is afraid that you would simply do the same things and act the same way.

But what if you could have a perfect record, as if you never had nor committed any sin?

If you have never been told that Jesus offers you his own righteousness, then shame on the preachers you have been listening to your whole life.

The fact is that the Christianity is not “do better, and God might accept you.”

It is greater than forgiveness; it is “as if you have never committed nor had any sin”.

That is beyond pardon, beyond forgiveness, beyond God just looking the other way.

It is God looking right at you and seeing his begotten Son, in whom he is well-pleased.
It isn’t tolerance. It is embrace.

In Jesus, you are embraced, welcomed, loved, protected, fed, and a part of something far, far beyond yourself.

If only you accept it with a believing heart. This is the call of the gospel. That is what good news really is.

It isn’t “be a better person.” And it isn’t that God is somehow not holy enough to notice your sins.

It upholds God’s holiness and God’s mercy all at once.

You stand before him in a righteousness that isn’t your own, but the work of another.

As the Heidelberg puts it:

60. How are you righteous before God?

Only by true faith in Jesus Christ: that is, although my conscience accuses me, that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and am still prone always to all evil; yet God, without any merit of mine, of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never committed nor had any sins, and had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me; if only I accept such benefit with a believing heart.

There is no “yeah, but…” to that at all.

The “offense” of the cross is not what many in modern evangelicalism think it is. It isn’t to make yourself as offensive as possible; nor is it getting in people’s faces over the law. It is the offense of the cross; not the offense of the law.

The offense of the cross is that our whole righteousness before God is the perfect righteousness of Christ put on our account. Our only hope before God is our sins nailed to his cross.

The reason that this is so offensive is that it means that your pedigree, your education, your socio-economic status, your politics, your standing in the community, your church membership, your good works, your wisdom – count for less than nothing in God’s eyes.

Your hope is exactly the same as the hope of the drug-dealer, prostitute, drunkard, homeless guy, and Hollywood celebrity – God’s grace alone.

The cross of Jesus is God’s exclamation point on all of our pride.

It means we are no better that the “others” and cannot boast in any way. This is what Philippians 3 is all about.

Paul had a better pedigree and education than you did, and he counted it dung that he might know Christ.

That is the offense of the cross.

The Jew and Roman, the Greek and the Persian, the men and the women and the children, those who offered sacrifices and those who didn’t, those who knew what the law said and sat in church every Sunday and those who didn’t – all of them only stand before God one way, and only one way – through faith in Christ who offered himself a propitiation to God in your place.

How much you tithe, how many church events you go to, how you voted last election, what you think of those horrible sinners out there – do absolutely nothing to take away your sins.

That is the offense of the cross.

The very religious man in the front of the church is found guilty. The tax collecting traitor pleads for mercy, and is declared “not guilty” – justified.

That’s the offense of the cross.