I was talking with some friends this weekend about some of the lies about God that we tend to believe. The concensus was that the most pervasive lie in the Christian community is that we must be perfect, or at least really, really good, to be saved. Where to people get an idea like that? Unfortunately, I think it comes from the rest of us Christians!
When someone asks one of us, like the rich young ruler did to Jesus, "What must I do to be saved?" we tend to tell them that they need to give up whatever sin we judge them to have before they can be saved. "If only you would quit drinking, live a moral life, quit watching those movies, listening to that music, looking at those pictures..." We forget that it is the Holy Spirit that makes the changes in our hearts and helps us to grow in Christ. We cannot make any change on our own. That is what the real Christian message is all about. If we could do it on our own, Jesus would not have come and would not have needed to die in our place.
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor theives nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God," I Corinthians 6:9, 10 NIV. This is what we tell people when we try to change them into Christians. You better shape up, or you're not going to make it! But we forget the rest of the verse:
"And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." Wow! We were all filthy in our sins, until God got ahold of us and cleaned us all up. It wasn't our "righteous" brothers and sisters setting us straight, it was God.
So, when we are offered an opportunity to help a wayward brother or sister, we need to introduce him or her to a God that loves them more than they can ever know. Help them to know the One that can save them. And let Him do the cleaning!
