This should be easy, why do we make it complicated?

I remember in 9th grade, I played on the baseball team at school.  It was a small private school and could use every player available, which is why a guy who was far more comfortable on the basketball court, and built more for the football field found himself in right field.  One particular game day we failed to uniform enough players to play an official game.  The visiting team had travelled some distance and still wanted to play.  So even though we had to officially forfeit, someone suggested that 2 guys from the visiting team switch sides and play for us.  That was it, in a moment 2 guys wearing rival uniforms crossed an invisible line and found themselves playing for another team.

     The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21 ²¹ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.  We see that righteousness, or the state of being right with God was God’s idea.  This Divine idea was accomplished through Jesus, who paid the penalty for sin.  The sin that required such a sacrifice was ours, all of ours, yours and mine.  No payment required on my part, no “buy now-pay later” plan, no burning off those extra mortal sins on the purgatorial treadmill for a few hundred years.  No it’s this simple:  I was on a rival team, suited up and ready to play against God and His will in my life.  Then, in an instant, that head-spinning moment when I realized that God loved me and paid for my failures, (Yes, even the ones that some of you, my old friends from ages past remember enjoying with me) I crossed an invisible line.  I had never suited up before, I hadn’t even worked out with the Home Team, I didn’t even know the play book.  Heck, I was still unsure of the names of my teammates, or whether they even liked this new arrangement.  I went from the “Sinner” team to the “Righteous” team.  Put on your best Southern-California-surfer-accent and say it, “RIGHTEOUS!”

Still, with all that Christ did for us, we insist on some attempt to measure our goodness by our works or our behavior.  While a high school kid gets suspended from his Christian school because he danced at his girlfriend’s prom, or a music minister finds his job on the line because his grown, married kids pose for a vacation photo with a beer in their hands, our Christian family is still trying to meet a standard of outward religion.  Jesus’ words to the religious hypocrites of His day ring out “tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of Heaven before you.” Matthew 21:31  Why did He say this?  Because while the throngs of religious achievers march on with their pride in their effort to keep a standard, the truly broken are realizing that the work has already been done.  The penalty has already been paid, God’s plan for reconciling people to himself has been accomplished, and “Sinners” are switching teams.  Jesus crossed that line for us, becoming sin for us, so that we could switch sides and be considered “right  with God”.  What’s so hard about that? 

If you’d like to switch teams, let us know at info@godshouseorlando.com