Monday, November 17, 2014



To open the 2014 season, the men's basketball team from Duke University managed to eek out a 113-44 win over Presbyterian. After the game ended, the teams met each other with the usual "good game" exchange.

Good game?  Really?  Did Presbyterian's players really walk away thinking, "Yeah.  They're right.  We did play a good game"?  Of course not.  At least on that one night, they came face to face with a very common, but very heavy burden:  Even when we do our best, it is not enough.

On some level, we we have all experienced the feeling of not being good enough.  Whether we were not smart enough, big enough, pretty enough, rich enough, or moral enough, we know what it's like to not measure up.

This is also true when it comes to faith.

I can never do enough good to wipe my slate clean.  When I compare what little good I've done with who God created me to be, well, it's just not enough.  God's standard is just too high.  I will never be enough.

Jesus is our bridge from never good enough to come as you are.

I don't have to do anything to be good enough for God.  His good is enough.

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice.  Hebrews 9:24-26


Right before Jesus' died, He said 'It is finished." What was finished?  The fight to be good enough.  Jesus had taken our place and sacrificed for us.  He traded his perfection for our "not good enough."  And when it was over, He said, "Come as you are." 

No matter how you may be feeling, Jesus invites you to come just as you are (imperfections and all) and find rest.  To some, you will never be good enough.  But to the One who matters most, you measure up just fine.  


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