Another reason I am a follower of Jesus and a Christian is that I have discovered how much I need the Lord’s grace and forgiveness.
A mother once asked her husband to watch their daughter, Annie, while she went to town. He agreed but wondered how to keep her busy. He leafed through a magazine and found a world map, which he then cut into small squares and scattered across the floor. He then called Annie and said to her, “Annie, please put the world back together for us, and when you are finished, come and call me.”
He thought this would keep her busy for a long time, but a few minutes later, she called to him, “Daddy, I am finished.” He could not believe it. However, when he checked it, every piece was in the right place.
“How did you do it?” he asked.
She then said, "When Daddy cut the card, I saw a picture of a man and a woman on the other side. I thought if I could put the man and the woman back together, I could put the world back together."
The big problem in the world and in the lives of people like us is what is going on in our own hearts and in the hearts of so many people around us, where we cannot see.
Let me explain it another way. Imagine you die and wake up in this huge hall. An angel comes in and says, "Welcome to the theatre of God's judgment. Sit back, relax, and watch the show that follows!"
Before you, on a giant screen, you see your entire life playing out before you: everything you have ever done, said, or thought. You see there all the sins you have committed, but also everything you have left undone; everything you should have done but did not do, and failed to do.
When the film ends, the angel comes back and says, “Relax. There is now a second showing. This time, everyone who appeared somewhere in the film will sit with you and watch it.”
I don’t know how you would feel about that! Yet I know and believe that if there is a day of judgment waiting for us somewhere, I really need God’s grace and especially His forgiveness!
I don’t need anyone to convince me that what has happened in my life, everything I have thought, said, and done, and everything I have failed to do and say, definitely deserves the wrath and punishment of a holy God!
The Bible does not say for nothing that all these things, which the Bible calls “sin,” cause separation between the holy God and me. It is like this huge overdraft that is slowly but surely building up in my bank account before God. The worst thing of all is that no one can help us with this, because all of us are completely overdrawn, and no one can pay off this debt.
Yes, I know there may be those who want to make excuses. Who says: “It wasn’t my fault! It was my parents… my teachers… society’s fault!”
Others will try to deny much of this. However, God knows the full truth. He knows that you and I are equally guilty, and that there is only one punishment for this that is just. The Word is very clear about this: All of us are guilty and ultimately deserve only one deserved punishment, namely, death! Yes, not only will we ultimately experience hell or die here on earth, but we all also deserve eternal death, hell, and its full glow of hellish, eternal punishment.
This is where the Good News, the Gospel message of forgiveness, salvation, and grace resounds! What tells of Jesus, the Messiah, who came to pay our bill for and on our behalf! This is what Jesus came to do for us!
This is why He, God the Son, became man. As John 3, verse 16 says: “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Yes, for this, Jesus the Christ came to pay with His blood, His life, to fully pay the debt that rested on us.
Yes, I chose to believe it! That Jesus did this for me, too.
That is why I accepted Him as my Savior and Lord, so that, as John 1:12 says, I would also know with certainty: I am now a child of this God and will never perish! Because I believe that Jesus did this for me, I believe that God, as a Holy God, can also forgive me and absolve my sin, because Jesus has already borne the full punishment for it.
Tell me, do you believe this, too?
Do you really believe this?
Then just grab that word and promise in John 1:12 for your life again today, because the God who says and promises it cannot lie! What He says stands firm and is true!