The Lee County Ledger    Weekly Pastor's Corner

Gary's Musings             by Gary Collier

You think you’re a good person, don’t you? You’re not perfect, sure, but deep down inside you think of yourself as a pretty good person overall. Go ahead, admit it! 

And you’re wrong. 100% wrong. 

The Bible says “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Romans 3:12)  And yes, that includes you and me.
 We teach our kids that our family and folks like us who live in our neighborhood and drive cars like we do and dress like we do and look like we do are somehow inherently better than folks who act or look different.  We warn them what the bad folks will do to them if they walk down a dark alley or drive down the wrong street. Not a good person, like us, but a bad person – they must be careful of them.

We believe that we are good people. Drug dealers and thieves and prostitutes and murderers and child molesters, those are bad people. We don’t want to be like them.

Jesus, if you recall, wandered and ministered among many people like this. He treated them tenderly, even. And who did he reserve his most scathing remarks for? It wasn’t the “bad” folks, but rather the upper crust, self-righteous Pharisees. The ones who had clean living down pat, who were detail artists about what was clean and what was dirty. Jesus turned their world upside down and called them out for what he judged to be the worst of all sins… thinking that you are better than someone else.

Folks, you can live right and not be right.

 We’re all the same underneath our skin. The message of the cross is that the blood of Jesus is the ONLY thing that will save us from who we really are. We’re not good people; we’re all capable of the worst sins under the right circumstances. And the worst sin, remember, is thinking that you are somehow better than others around you.

 Until we understand this we will never be able to appreciate God’s grace. People who don’t think they’re bad will never know the power of great grace. Those who have been saved and think they’re better than others will never be able to proclaim with passion that grace is what makes the difference. 

As long as we believe that there are two kinds of people in this world – good ones and bad ones – we will never fully understand the message of the cross. If we’re not careful we will find ourselves judged by God to be a Pharisee, because we believe we are fundamentally better than sinners.

I’m thankful for God’s great grace – aren’t you? 

Rev. Gary Collier is pastor at Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church located at 791 White Pond Rd. He can be reached at garybcollier@gmail.com or by calling 854-3003. You may access and share “Gary’s Musings” by going to www.cshcl.com .

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