Good Deeds ain’t Fireproof!

The problem many, if not most, people have in their conception of the Christian worldview is that of the Fall, and the way of Salvation. People think that they MUST do something! All other worthy accomplishments require some work on our part.

To pass a test, we must study.

To make the team, we must work out and practice.

To get the job, we must pad the resume!

Just kidding.

Yet, to be saved, we must only allow God… This goes against our method of operation. Surely we must do SOMETHING. Trim the hedges, armor-all the tires, make the bed, rinse the dishes… something.

This is what makes Christianity so foolish to the unregenerate.

It makes no sense, as some Muslims say, that one Person can pay for the sins of another person.

Oprah Winfrey, by most accounts, is a good person by human standards.

She gives away cars.

She gives houses to poor people.

She provides college scholarships to deserving youth.

She builds schools.

She informs us about health, weight, and interior decorating.

She has, by all indications, a beautiful heart.

But the universe, which she claims is god, is NOT God. The universe is scientifically shown to have had a beginning, which requires that it is subject to its Beginner. The universe has no personality. IT does not get angry. It does not THINK. It does not experience joy or pleasure. It only exists. Like a tree, or a river.

Oprah says that she does not need Jesus to get to heaven, because her good DEEDS will get her in. She says that there are milllllions of ways of getting to what YOU call God, and that there can’t POSSIBLY be only one way! She said it with such surety and conviction, too! (So, at that statement, we now have Jesus, that “good guy” they all tout, telling a HUGE lie! He is well known to have said that HE is the only way.)

Jesus is the God of the universe. Like it or not, just as, like it or not, George Bush is President. We accept other things with which we don’t agree — gas prices, death, ’80’s music, insurance (a racket!), ”The Flavor of LOVE”!, line dances…

Jesus is not just a cool guy walking around in dusty sandals, talking softly, with birds fluttering around at His shoulders. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He is badder than Leroy Brown, even! He says that good works don’t save us. They don’t even help with the burden.

Jesus bore the FULL weight by Himself on the cross.

Oprah or Farrakhan or Richard Gere or Joseph T. Blow do Jesus no favors by claiming that He was a prophet, or a good and wise man who came with a message of peace and looove. Ahhhhh!

No one gets to the Father but through Him. As He truly is. God.

We didn’t just fall down on the ground from a standing position. We fell, and have been falling, from the infinite height of perfection, gaining momentum from Adam till this instance. There is nothing to hang onto, nothing to break the fall. Nothing between us and the Dragon’s mouth. We have no parachute. We cannot reach up and grab the ledge, for there IS no ledge. There is only God.

Do you realize how long an arm He must have in order to catch something that has been falling for millenia?

But this is the beauty –and the truth — of it. A man-made religion would not leave man’s works out of the equation! I mean, if Christians were going to fabricate a religion, we certainly would not invent one where we don’t get at least some of the credit, some of the glory. God gets it all. “Jesus paid it ALL.”

So all the school-building, and advocating, and car-giving, and donating, and photo-opping count for NOTHING apart from a relationship with Jesus. Sorry. Not my rules. Yours either.

Without Jesus, all you are doing is sweeping a dirt floor. Dusting a mud hut.

Our good deeds don’t get us through the door, they only furnish the room.