sinner or saint?

“Do or do not. There is no try.” ~ Yoda. The little green guy with long ears may have had a false impression of the true Force, but he was definitely on to something. When it comes to seeking God or following Jesus, it really is all or nothing. “Take up your cross (a Roman execution instrument),” “Lay down your life,” and “Give away all that you have and follow Me.” These are startling invitations, but this is the Gospel. Jesus isn’t asking us to do what He hasn’t already done.

Jesus gave up a perfect home to be born in a barn and rub shoulders with sinners. He often rubbed them the wrong way. Before He ever paid the horrific death penalty we owed to God, He called sinners to repent. I’ll paraphrase it like this, Jesus said, “Turn away from life as you know it because you’re dead men walking. You’re like zombies traipsing off a cliff. Turn around; I am the way, the truth, and the life. Everything else in this world, except the whispers from my defiled creation, are lies.”

We all come into God’s family by new birth. I’ve never seen a partial person or half a baby. People may have physical defects, but sin defiles us all. Yup, sin is another all-or-nothing concept.

All have sinned. All have come short of God’s glory; there are none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10, 23). Yet a miraculous change happens at the new birth, we get a complete blood transfusion, and the infection of spiritual death is no more. Completely G-O-N-E! And while we struggle with sin in our skin (the flesh), the penalty is paid in full. So where are you at today with Jesus?

Do you have all of His forgiveness or none of it? Personally, I’d rather die and live forever than live a drop-in-bucket life and die for all eternity paying for my sins. Born once, die twice. Born twice, die once. 1+1+1= 1 in the Kingdom of our God of the impossible. You are one dead sinner or one living saint. It really is all or nothing!