He holds the highest recorded vertical leap in NBA history, according to bleacherreport.com! Michael Jordan’s jump, from a standing position, has been measured at an amazing 48 inches!
I used to compare my jump to MJ’s when speaking to the church I pastored. I obviously fall way short of his huge accomplishment!
However, we both fall far short of an impossible goal… jumping to the moon. There’s more to this story and we will get back to it shortly.
The recent death of a “good” man, who was part of another religion, caused me to reflect on a subject that is taken for granted in today’s culture. Polls reveal that most people believe good people go to heaven. So, the question is, do good people go to heaven? The answer is yes, IF they meet God’s standard of good!
Most people’s belief system is like my comparison of Michael Jordan and myself in a jumping contest. They believe they are really good when compared to other people. Of course MJ is much better at jumping than me! What is forgotten is the target we are both trying to reach, the moon! Neither of us have even the slightest chance to jump there on our own! The target is way too high. The same is true of being “good”. It also is unreachable!
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 The standard that God uses to determine “good” is Himself. All of humanity has sinned and comes up short of God’s measure. The most moral person we can think of is still tainted by sin. The best way to illustrate this truth is to think of a pure glass of water. Add just one tiny drop of arsenic to it. It is now polluted and undrinkable. Just one impure thought, one tainted motive, one bad attitude, one wrong word, is that tiny drop of arsenic! We are now polluted and no longer meeting God’s standard.
Being perfectly righteous and sinless is God’s standard and no one ever meets it on their own! It would be more possible for MJ and me to jump to the moon than for any of us to meet God’s standard of “good” on our own.
That’s the bad news, but there is good news! If we were invited, MJ and I could get to the moon! We could get there by a power not our own, a big, powerful rocket! I’m not holding my breath, waiting for an invitation to that though!
We HAVE been given an invitation to meet God’s standard of “good” by a Power not our own! The Gospel gives us the way. Jesus, the God-man, lived the only perfect, sinless life ever lived, then died to pay for our sin. Because of that, He now offers us forgiveness and the gift of His righteousness! We can meet God’s standard of perfect righteousness by having Jesus’ righteousness credited to us! It’s our “rocket to the moon”, the place we could never jump to on our own! When we respond to God’s invitation, trust in Jesus and His sacrifice for our sins, we get in the “rocket” to meet God’s high and holy standard!
When I think of the “good” man who died recently and I see all the people believing that good people, according to their standard, go to heaven, it makes me sad. It also reminds me that, even if misunderstood or hated, I have been given the mission of telling all who will listen, the truly Good News!
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