In our society today, we have a tendency to treat being a Christian like a beauty pageant. People make it seem as if it’s all about who can cover up their sin the best. At times, it seems like we have to earn our way into Heaven by attempting to “even out the scoreboard” of our sins when in actuality, the more we try the more we fail.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that doing good things is bad or sinful, but what I am saying is that our deeds should not be our focus. This is the very point I’m aiming at because you see…

The Gospel isn’t about what we do, but about what God did.

Our eyes should be so in awe of Him that we recognize the sin, the dirt, the ash that we carry so heavily on our shoulders and realize that we can’t rid of this sin issue on our own. We need to see that it is by God’s grace that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us all. He did that because He loves us. He did that not to simply do us a favor, but to give us life.

He came to show us that He wants us.

He wants YOU.

Can you believe that? The God of the universe knows your name, knows who you are, everything that you’ve done, every sin that you’ve committed, and He loves you enough to die for you.

Because of this love and His holiness, wanting to be like Him is a good thing. When you want to imitate Christ, that is a good thing, and it is so good because it’s not about you. It’s not about how great you are, but it’s about how great and wonderful our God is.

Life isn’t about us, and that is some of the best news to ever receive.

If life truly was all about us and that was it, there would be no set of right and wrong. We couldn’t grow deeper, and we would all be striving to see who could be the “most good” out of our own eyes, but Jesus put an end to this restlessness. He put an end to questioning whether or not you are “good enough” to reach Heaven because you’re not.

Since God is perfect, it just wouldn’t be possible for any of us to be “good enough” to enter His kingdom, and He loved us so much that He came in the flesh to trade our sin, our shame, every evil thought, every mean thing spoken, every evil action for righteousness.

It is so undeserved.

Because it is so undeserved, our lives shouldn’t be lived trying to compare ourselves to see how we are better than someone else, but it should be about telling others about Jesus.

Jesus is the answer we’ve all been searching for.

Jesus is first sip of pure, clean water in the midst of a desert.

Jesus gives life.

Jesus is life.

We need to be telling others that there is someone that can rescue us all.

He wants to be the center of our spirit. When He is let into our lives, it’s not that we won’t sin ever again because we still aren’t perfect, but it’s that we are forgiven. We can release our burdens. We can live freely. When we do live freely in Christ, sin naturally begins to feel unattractive to us. We will stumble and slip, but in Christ, we can walk in His love and forgiveness.

There’s a difference between wanting to be like Jesus and wanting to be better than other people. There’s a difference between being a servant and trying to show others that we seem “good enough” for Heaven and better than them.

This is the Gospel.

It’s undeserved grace. It’s beautiful. It can be scary putting your sin into the light, but trust me, it’s worth it.

I couldn’t save myself from my Hell-bound race, but He did.

Just trust Him.