I love that commercial where the three ladies are talking and the one has hung pictures all over her wall and other friend points to them and says, “I like that one” and the other friend looks bewildered and says, “That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.” It seriously cracks me up every time I see it on TV. I think because it shows a basic truth about human nature: sometimes we make things more complicated than they have to be.
I’ve heard people say they’ll accept Christ after they fix this or that in their lives or that they’re going to Heaven because they’re basically good people. Well, that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works. First and foremost, we can’t “fix” ourselves. Nor does God want us to. If we could, then the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ wouldn’t have been necessary. The fact is that God loves us despite our flaws {Romans 5:8} and because of that love He sent His son that we may have eternal life through faith in Him {John 3:16}.
And just as we can’t fix ourselves, we can’t “buy” our way in either {Romans 6:23 and Titus 3:5}. God doesn’t have a set number of good deeds you have to perform in order to make it to Heaven; eternal life is a gift that has been given freely to us by a loving and merciful God. All you have to do is believe…
