You’ve  Got  To  Be  Perfect!

Ask any 100 persons on the street if they believe that they will go to heaven when they die, and it’s probable that 90 or 95 of them will answer, “Yes” or “I hope so.”

A critical follow-up question then needs to be asked,  “Why do you believe that?”

The top five answers might be like these:  (1.) “I’m as good as the next guy,” (2.) “I’ve always tried to be a good person and do what is right,” (3.) “I’ve gone to church all my life,” (4.) “I believe in God,” and (5.) “I don’t believe God would send anyone to hell...except for someone like Hitler, of course.”

Therein lies the problem.  Not one of these answers is the “correct” one.  If you are relying on what you have done or on incorrect belief, you are in mortal danger.

Jesus spoke of this problem in Matthew 5.  Basically, He said if you are only as good as the next person, what do you hope to gain?  Speaking about doing good to those who are good to you, He said, “What are you doing more than others?  Do not even pagans do that?”  And then He spoke these crucial words, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

That is God’s standard for you and me, “Be perfect.”  The bad news, as you recognize, is that standard is utterly unreachable in our humanity.  We are as imperfect as we can get!  We are sinners hopelessly unable to do what is right in God’s eyes.

The width of the chasm between God and us is too immense even to measure.  It is impassable.  His dwelling place is holy, perfect, glorious, and utterly untouched by sin.  Not one of us is worthy or able to live with Him as we are.  We cannot reach God.

But He, in His great love for us, has reached over that gulf to us.  The Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, left the glories of heaven and humbled Himself, taking on the form and likeness of a man.  While on this earth, He was “tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin.”  Completely faultless, He voluntarily gave His life as the perfect sacrifice for our sin.

When we believe and trust fully in Jesus (and in Him alone) for our eternal salvation, He becomes our perfection.  When you receive Christ by faith, receive His forgiveness for your sins and continue to abide in Him, you will then stand before the final judgment and God will look at you and see His perfect Son in you.  You will be judged perfect and made truly perfect because of Him!  And that, my friend, is the only way you will ever gain eternal life in heaven.

 “He is able to save completely [forever] those who come to God through Him." --Hebrews 7: 25

“Just as man is destined to die once, and after that  to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him.”  --Hebrews 9: 27