HOPE, BOYS AND GIRLS,HOLY BIBLE,SIN,SHORT STORY,BIBLE STUDY,TRUTH,CHILDREN godswordsays,JUDGMENT,HOLY SPIRIT,, CATHOLIC
God isn't fooled!
Could you think of a list of things from your life that God your Creator would be pleased with? And would there be another list you could have of things you know God would not be pleased with? Jesus has something surprising to say about such lists!
"Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.’" The Pharisee had come with his list of good things! He "stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers --or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'"
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But hadn’t he a list of things he had done that offended God? God isn’t fooled by people who try to cover up their sins. "God cannot be mocked."
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For a sinner like you or me to try to claim to be good in God’s sight is foolishness! It would be like a person whom the doctor knows is dying with incurable cancer arguing with him that he is healthy because he has good eyesight or a strong heart. The doctor knows that the cancer will soon destroy the patient’s life!
God is not impressed by our list of the things we consider to be good. Sin is in everyone’s life and it condemns us!
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But in Jesus’ parable the other man, the tax-collector, did not try to impress God. He stood at a distance; perhaps watching the Jewish priest making the animal sacrifices for the sins of the people - for his sins!
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It was him who deserved the death and destruction that those animals were suffering! " He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'"
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The holy and just God demands that "the wages of sin is death."
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Yet God was able and willing to respond to this request for mercy because the "death" of the temple sacrifices had been paid for sin.
Jesus said, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God."
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To be JUSTIFIED means that God no longer considers you to be a condemned sinner, but one who is at peace with Him having your sins fully paid for!
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Today no temple sacrifices, or any other offerings or masses, have any value in justifying the sinner before God!
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The sinner can only be "justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. " And so God "justifies those who have faith in Jesus,"
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whose sacrifice for our sins was "once and for all".
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Have you as a sinner, having faith in Jesus the Saviour, asked and trusted God for mercy and forgiveness? Do you know the peace and joy of being able to say "I’m JUSTIFIED in God’s sight by faith in Jesus’ death for me - I’m JUST-AS-IF-I’D no sin!"
Read about the sinner Jesus said was "justified" in Luke’s Gospel chapter 18, verses 9-14.
E-mail me if you have any questions about what I've said.
There will be a different message next week as we continue to browse through Luke's Gospel in the Holy Bible. Why not put Good News Compage on your favourites list?
To read more of Luke's account of the life of Jesus turn to the Gospel of Luke in the Holy Bible.
Bye for now,
John Nixon, Ballincollig, Co.Cork, Ireland.
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In order to browse another message from Luke's Gospel check out the review index.
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Bible quotations from N.I.V.
1L Luke 18:9-12. 2 Galatians 6:7. 1 John 1:8. 3 Romans 3:10-12, 20-23. Isaiah 59:2. 64:6. 4 Hebrews 10:10-18. 9:22. 5 Luke 18:13. 6 Romans 6:23. 7 Luke 18:14. 8 Romans 5:1-2. 9 Romans 3:24-26. 10 Hebrews 9:12, 26. 10:10.
