Not Too Dirty for Him

Not Too Dirty for Him

by David Brenneman

Many, many people believe that Jesus couldn't or wouldn't ever love one such as themselves.  Many, many, people go off and do their own thing because they don't think that what they do or don't do will really matter because they think they are THAT dirty.  That they've done so much 'bad' stuff in their lives that Jesus couldn't possibly forgive them nor accept them.  Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Perfection is unattainable in our own efforts.  Christ became the perfect sacrifice because only He could do so for the sins of mankind.  Only He had lived a perfect, sinless, life and could be worthy to be the one to take anyone's place, let alone be enough to offer up what was needed for all humanity for all time.

There's many cliche's out there.  "Be patient with me, God's not finished with me yet."  "Not perfect, just forgiven." "Work in progress." "We catch em' Jesus clean's em."

What we do is come by faith and trust Jesus to keep His word to do the rest.  Jesus never ever turns away anyone who would come to Him to be saved.  Even at our lowest He's there.  At our perceived 'hightest', He's there too.  It's in our low times we tend to rely on Him more.  

Much of my life has been a battle of wills between my sin nature and me over the subject of me.  It's easy to point to Satan and say it's his fault for most everything that's not been good in my life.  Truth is choice became ours when Christ arose from the dead.  The choice to choose to sin or not to.  The choice to listen to our sin nature or listen to the Spirit of God.  Choice is before all who would come to Christ to be saved.  

The world wants people to believe (and as Satan is the 'god' of this world it's his plan and purpose) that there's many ways to get to Heaven.  Well, in a sense, there is.  His idea of heaven, not God's true Heaven.  Satan wants all mankind to worship him and not God.  Satan wants people, and angels, to worship him.  He cares not how low he convinces people that they are in order to keep them from the truth of God about them.

Yes, Satan does not care what he does or in better terms, what he's permitted to do, to make you think you are something you are not.  

He cares not who goes to Hell, he just doesn't want anyone to make it to Heaven.  When you decide to come to Christ, he loses.  Not to say he won't try to keep you from speaking up, from doing what you will be called to be doing, but he won't be anything but a sore loser.  When Jesus arose from the dead, Satan lost for all eternity.  The Father's plan was for those who believe by coming to Christ for salvation to share that with others so that they too might be saved.  It simply takes the faith of a child to do so.  Children don't over-think what their parents tell them.  Many many times we mess up in life by overthinking what God's chosen to make simple.  We are in a world where you go through much and learn how not to trust.  It's in Christ we learn we can implicitly trust Jesus.

Nobody who is breathing air is too far from salvation in Christ Jesus.  All are one step away.  One choice, one decision away, from freedom from the guilt of sin that weighs upon all.  That dirt, that heaviness, of wrongs done.  This isn't to say that those who have done things won't still see consequences to their physical actions after coming to Christ to be saved, it means they won't face them alone.  Alone.  That's one of Satan's heaviest hitting soft chains.  He wants you to think that you are alone.  That nobody would want you, that there's no way that Jesus would accept you.  That you aren't worth anything to anyone.  

Just as bad is that he also pushes people to think more highly of themselves than they ought to.  That life is going too good for them to 'need' salvation.  They got money, they got respect, they got all they ever wanted in life, why should they 'need' to be saved?   Because the choice of salvation is more than what your eyes see or  your ears hear.  Salvation in Christ Jesus decides your eternal future.  Those who come to Christ, upon death, are immediately received into His arms into God's Heaven.  Those who don't, DO begin paying for their own sins in a very real place called Hell.  There's no throne in Hell where Satan and his minions sit and watch people being put through torture or pain.  Satan's never been there.  Only those demons condemned by God are there.  The rest are in this world in which we live along with Satan. 

Evil is disguised in this world as people getting what they want, however it's to be gotten.  Yet in Exodus 23 NASB we read some examples of things that God says are evil, that are sins.  These evils are displayed and perpetuated to look like it's all being done for good!  That JUSTICE is being served!   But what does it say? "You shall not bear a false report (aka do not lie about or for someone); do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute." (v1-3).  Sins are any thoughts or actions that go against the Word of God.   We are born in sin because of Adam and Eve's original sin.  So we're guilty from the get-go.   It doesn't get better from there.  A single sin is enough to be sent to the firey Hell.  A single thought.  A single action. 

In Christ Jesus, through the salvation offered only through Him, He washes all that away.  Completely.  When God the Father looks upon any who have come to Christ in faith for salvation, He only sees Jesus.  He doesn't see our sins.  Jesus promises to cast our sins as far away as the east is from the west.  

Peace.  Peace comes with salvation in Christ as well.  The weight is lifted, the guilt can be removed, and a peace comes that we can't explain.  What's very very hard for some is that they have gotten so used to the guilt that it no longer bothers them.  The Bible calls this a hard heart.  I am a firm believer that as long as God grants the gift of breathing to anyone, then anyone can come to Christ to be saved.  Hope only ends when you're no longer breathing.  

Some may argue about some of the most vile, evil, people in this world.  That there's NO way that God would forgive them or save them.  Not true.

In the book of Daniel we read of his generation's Pharaoh.  God had set this man upon the entire world.  He thought he was indeed all that and a slice of bread.

Whom he wished he killed whom he wished to spare, he spared.  In his mind life and death of anyone was in his hands to grant or deny.  We read in Daniel that God humbled him and showed him the truth of his life and his need to acknowledge God as the one who sets up kingdoms and removes them.  This world leader had unparalleled power to kill or spare.  Even today, we have leaders who want to be the same, in the last 200 years we've seen people try to rise to power to wield that kind of power.  God's not allowed it because it's not in His plan just yet.  The return of Christ hasn't happened yet.

Even those we read of in the book of Revelation, the AntiChrist and the False Prophet, WILL bow the knee to Jesus Christ.  

Dirty.  Oh you indeed may have done some things in your life, but hope is not lost.  Hope still is there before you.  Hope is there waiting in the person of Jesus Christ, arms open, calling to you to trust Him, and come to Him and let Him take care of you.  Don't listen to anyone or anything that says you don't need Him or that you would never be accepted or loved by Him.  If you were the only human alive He would have died to take your place.  

I can't fathom the love of God for me.  It's more than my mind can wrap itself around.  I just know that He does love me, He did die for me, and I do my best to live for Him because of His sacrifice on the cross in my place.  

You'll also be tempted to think you don't need it because 'you're not that bad'.  In terms of sin, 1 strike equals 3 and you're out.  The first strike is being born in sin.  We all are.  Therefore we're 'out'.  Only salvation in Christ Jesus puts us on base in life.  Only salvation in Christ allows us on the field to play the game the way it was meant to be played.  

Be ready, because you'll be told or you will think that you don't need all this.  Those thoughts will come because sin is so utterly sinful. 

For God so loved YOU that He gave His one and only Son, that if YOU believe in Him, YOU will have eternal life. 

Think about John 3:17-18 not just 3:16 NASB "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

Jesus stands just outside the door of your heart. He is gently knocking, asking to come in.  Will you let Him?