Day 2253 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Titus 3:5a NIV

We think we can do it by ourselves. We think we can earn everything. We think that doing enough good (in our watered-down definition of good) is all it takes to secure our eternal hope and peace. I don't know if it's a matter of arrogance, pride, stubbornness, or just blatant stupidity but whatever the reason we better learn to get over because it's just not going to help us. Any amount of hope that we put in ourselves is only going to lead to disappointment.

No matter what we may have convinced ourselves, our best isn't really all that great. Our best is still a far cry from what our God desires. Our best is never going to be enough to earn us a ticket to Heaven. We can never do enough good deeds to make up for all the mistakes that we've made. Thankfully that's not how it works anyway! We're used to thinking that it's all based on us but in reality, it's all completely reliant upon God's mercy.

Our best isn't all that great and our worst, well, our worst is far more messed up and abhorrent than we care to admit. When it's all said and done, our only hope is God's mercy. When our time on this earth Is done and we’re standing there before the throne, our only hope is His mercy. Not any good deeds we may have accidentally gotten right. Not some witty excuse that we think will cover our countless sins. His mercy is all we got.

Thankfully it's all we need. That's why He offers it freely to those who are willing to look beyond themselves and change their twisted ways. He offers His grace to everyone that calls on the name of His Son and asks for His forgiveness. He offers us His salvation because we need it. He gives it because He knows that we're so far from perfect that our only hope of being anything close to decent is the precious blood that His Son poured out on the cross to cover the vileness that has defined nearly every aspect of our lives at one point or another.

We have to stop thinking that we can earn it because we can't. It took the only Son of God dying on a cross to even give us a chance at something better than what we truly deserve. It took the ultimate sacrifice to bridge the gap that we ourselves had created. Do we really think that we can somehow come up with another alternative to the cross? Do we think that we can come up with a list of deeds or excuses that will take His mind off of our wickedness? If that's what we think then we're delusional!

Folks, it's all on God. It's His mercy. His grace. His forgiveness. His salvation. His love. The only, and I mean the only part that we can possibly play in this is humbling ourselves before His throne and asking for His wisdom and guidance to lead us in a better direction than the broken paths that we've travelled trying to do it ourselves. It's time to kick the arrogance out of the way and allow ourselves to humbly realize just how badly we need the gift that He's offering us. If we don't then we're going to miss it and there's no excuse or reason or debate that we can possibly come up with to make up for failing to accept His grace when we had the chance.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold