Sharing the gospel!

Praise God for an awesome night sharing the gospel the other day. I got to speak with these young ladies (who gave permission to put this photo up). And overall, it was a great night! I don't have the full list of people I talked to in front of me so hopefully I will put that up soon in detail. But one thing that really stood out to me is a random conversation I had with a young gentlemen. He laughed and said "Isn't God like santa claus where he puts your good and bad deeds on a scale and you hope you did more good than bad".

It really upset me because this awful lie of santa is distorting people's views of the true God. Our bad deeds are so bad that we can never make up for them.  In the old testament it says "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away."- Isaiah 64:6

The original text for "filthy rags" is actually menstrual rags! How gross! And that's how our "good" deeds are in God's eyes because we aren't doing them to glorify Him, but to glorify ourselves.

For example, I remember when I was younger and didn't believe in God, I did a lot of volunteer work and it was ALWAYS to make myself feel better. So I can tell people what I did or know that I helped someone. It was nothing to do with God! It was all about me and chasing a feeling.

The thing is that our sin is so bad there is no "cosmic" scale (this is what the majority of all other religions teach, but it's not true). We are all GUILTY. We all deserve hell. I deserve hell! But God in His mercy sent His only son Jesus that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life! Wow! Amazing how much He did for us! And to accept that free gift we have to repent and believe in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of our sins. And then follow him as our Lord and Savior.

I often hear this example. If you lie to your parents, what happens? You get in trouble. If you lie to a police officer you go to jail for a short time. If you lie to the President of the US you go to jail probably forever. See the penalty is different depending on who the violation was against. It's the same with God. If we sin against God, our punishment will be eternal(in hell).

I also wonder why we call our "good deeds" good? The bible says"...No one is good--except God alone."- Luke 18:19 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."-John 15:5 We can do no good apart from God.

God bless,
Kay