Credit

I wonder if the reason why God allowed me to go through this little test the last couple of years was to once and for all eliminate any doubt that I was not a "good person." He let me see the ugliness of pride and control in some people so that I could be sure to know that our righteousness would never cut it. We are all frail, broken and hollow vessels incapable of making the journey to holiness without Christ.

It is because of this that I have concluded there is no one righteous, not even the "righteous." All we have in the end is the sacrifice of Christ and his cross to cling to. A blood stained, messy hunk of wood covered with splinters--a cold place of death. It is here and only here that we can find justification--a justification outside ourselves, beyond our grasp, but one that is grasped because (and only because) Christ has offered it to us.

So when you are tempted to idolize your leadership or someone that you respect because of their "superior spirituality" remember the death of Christ. Remember that beauty rises out of the ashes of the cross. Beauty is a gift to the once walking dead. We cannot claim that spiritual beauty is of our own making but only the result of the true love of God in Christ. This is a love expressed in one of the simplest but most profound verses of scripture: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

So who gets the credit for making it to heaven? Do I get credit because I "lived a holy life for Jesus" or do you because you "attended church every Sunday?" Neither of us gets the credit. The converted harlot will stand before Jesus one day and sing for the goodness of God. The upstanding business man will fall on his face in thankfulness at the mercy of God in Christ. No, none of us will boast because "we made it." We all must look through our tears of joy at the one who made righteousness a possibility: Jesus Christ. Only he gets the credit and that sounds good to me.