Do as I say do – not as I do do

Monday I posted chapter one of my book on my new website WWW.Miracleonluckiestreet.com as a sneak preview. Reaction was mixed. One person wrote, “I read chapter one of your memoir, please unsubscribe me”.

Hmmm

I unsubscribed him from WFTD and wrote back, “Done”. He could have easily accomplished this himself by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the page, but obviously wanted me to know that he was displeased with the content of chapter one.

Much of my life I hid my wicked past from everyone, even my wife. When my kids starting coming of age I was deathly afraid that they could make the same wrong decisions that I made and at that point I revealed to them the terrible mistakes that I made and how I was able to overcome them through my faith in Jesus Christ.

My sons listened (for once) and avoided making those same mistakes that I made and turned out to be terrific young men. As time moved on I felt that others could perhaps be helped by my testimony and I began witnessing to them, then I began writing WFTD, and now the book. I do it all for no other purpose than to try and help people.

There are those who view me in a very negative light because of my sordid past. I am of the opinion that people sometimes get misguided feelings about Christ and fail to understand the realities of what He taught. Jesus is not interested in condemnation of others; rather that we recognize our sin, repent, and ask Him for forgiveness whereby He can save us through His sacrifice on the cross. According to the Bible we are to emulate Jesus in every way. And we shouldn’t condemn others.

He taught that we all have sinned and fell short of the glory of God and used the examples of adultery and murder. He said if we as much as look upon someone and lust for them, we have committed adultery in our hearts. If we are so much as angry with someone we have committed murder. While this may seem stringent, nonetheless Jesus Himself made these points and told us that “any” sin subjects us to God’s judgment for breaking God’s holy and righteous laws.

We must always remember that God’s righteousness far exceeds society’s notion of righteousness. In Matthew 5:20 Jesus said, “For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees at the time were the most ardent followers of the strict laws as recorded in the Old Testament and few people in our modern society even approach their vain attempts at achieving righteousness and following God’s laws to the letter.

We cannot be good enough to get into heaven without Christ. If we could, then Christ would not have had to come die on the cross.

The bottom line message here is that we should not set ourselves up as righteous judges, because we are not judges. In fact it is impossible to please God without the blood of Christ covering our own sins. We should just remain humble and concentrate on our own sins and leave judgment to the Lord.

Enough about that subject. On another note you might find it interesting to hear another comment that I got from a reader of chapter one: “Well, did you kill the punk?”

Sigh I’ll tackle this one another day

Luke 18:9
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other menrobbers, evildoers, adulterersor even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”