My baby is no longer a baby...she is a mature three year old...going on thirteen if you ask me. She is quick with her wit and says phrases that blow me away. I love when she uses the word "actually" and when she says she is so hungry she is going to "just die", I cannot help but laugh. She was putting fake jewelry on her grandfather last week and she informed me, "I am turning Grandaddy into a Grandma!" She has everybody laughing in a matter of minutes.
We celebrated her birthday yesterday, and although the weather here was horrid, we had a fabulous day! I am so thankful for my girls!
We headed to church after our usual cinnamon roll Sunday morning breakfast (which is what she still requested...she is a definite creature of habit) and we even opened a present or two. I was wanting her to stay with us during the service, but she was persistent on going to her own class. (That's a good thing that she likes it that much!) It was probably a good idea anyway since we were observing communion yesterday.
The sermon was excellent and something I had already had on my mind this week. The pastor spoke from Isaiah 53:5-12. He talked about how we can do nothing to gain acceptance by God or admittance into heaven except receive Jesus as our Savior. No matter how hard we work in the church, or serve in Sunday school; no matter how much we tithe or give to missions or even go on mission trips, none of that gets us into heaven. If we don't first have a relationship with Jesus, none of those things matter a bit!
I had been contemplating this thought before the services. Along with turning three, my daughter has been officially potty trained for a few months (YaY!!!) With potty training comes learning to wash her hands. She has learned to work the sink and learned to pump the soap into her little hands. She pumps and pumps and pumps some more until her hand is oozing with soap. It takes forever to get all the soap off. She thinks it is hilarious and while I am stuck filling the soap dispenser up every other day. I try to explain to her that her hands will be just as clean if she just uses one dab of soap. All that extra soap is not necessary to get her hands any cleaner. Same with serving... none of it is necessary to enter into heaven. Salvation is the only thing that can cleanse us, nothing we can physically do erases that need.
Am I in any way saying that serving God is not important...NO!!!
Am I in any way saying that attending church, tithing, teaching, telling the Good News is not important...NO!!!!
I am simply saying that none of the extras gets you to heaven. None of that stuff gets you any cleaner in God's eyes. Not one extra deed is going to put you in the front of the line or at the top of the Lamb's Book of Life.
If we don't acknowledge that there is nothing in the entire world that we ourselves can do to get us into heaven, we have missed the whole point of Easter and His death, burial and Resurrection. Just like a little soap will do just fine, just acknowledging that Jesus died for us and accepting that He is the only way will make us worthy in God's eyes. In the words of the old hymn, "Nothing but the blood of Jesus" is necessary to make us clean.
Today's Verse
1 Peter 2:24 "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: BY WHOSE STRIPES YE WERE HEALED."
He bared it all so we may be clean!
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