Are You a Sinner Compared to Jesus?

For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard
(Romans 3:23 – NLT)

The people in this world have a hard time believing that they are sinners in need of grace for several reasons. One most prominent one is the fact that such persons fail to examine themselves in the light of God’s standard: His own Son, Jesus. Most compare themselves with other people around them, or perhaps to “bad” people they know, or criminals they have read about, or Hitler, etc. Of course, they reason, I am a basically good person. Go to any jail, and you will find this to be true. The man in the cell says admits that he may have done this or this thing, but the guy in the next cell; well he did this!

I have never met a man, when pressed to compare himself with Jesus, have the audacity to say that compared to the Lord he was a saint. However, I do not put anything past the depravity of man, and so perhaps there are people who would do so. If we were to ask them if they were a sinner compared to Jesus, they would say, no.

To which I say, well then give me everything that you have in your pockets right now, your wallet, your car keys, etc. If they protest, I would tell them that is what Jesus would do, for he had nothing; can you still say you are as good as Him?

You say that Jesus couldn’t walk around today without any home or money; that if he was to go do evangelistic crusades he would have to ask for and build up a foundation of money; but if He did those miracles like it talks about in the Bible, people would be screaming for Him to come and would provide, and of course He could create like He did with the five loaves, etc.

What would Jesus do? That is a farce, because we CANNOT do what He can, did, and would do, he would give away everything including himself, which we will not do no matter how good we are, we may conform even to the point of giving all our wealth away but we still haven’t met all the law on the inside. This is why we must keep coming back to the Cross for our sanctification, and why a sinner must see his true need not his felt needs before receiving eternal life. Romans 15:13 talks about joy and peace IN BELIEVING, not coming to Jesus for those but having those as the fruit of a forgiven life.

We have to see how dirty and filthy and rotten sin is, not just how bad it makes us feel, we have to hate sin and love righteousness. When we come to Christ just to find happiness because we have been broken by the world we are having a false conversion because what we would have done is stay with sin if we could have gotten away with it. For example if we come because we have gone bankrupt spending money on wine women and song (i.e. sex, drugs, and rock n roll), and our life is in ruins, if we come only because we are “in need” (just a felt need of having a bad experience in life) we are coming for the wrong reason, because if we still had the money we would still be going at it per se. This is why rock stars and the like burn out; they have the money and they love the sin, they are like Dorian Grey, the don’t see the true picture, they see themselves as immortal or that this life is all there is.

The power of the Word is like a mirror and also like a shower. Christians want to continue on and not give up even when continually seeing perfection and not measuring up in the mirror because they hate sin and love righteousness! They see themselves and their unrighteousness in the mirror, but God shows them His own righteousness, which He freely gives them, and the Word washes them clean like a shower.

It is not simply that Christ is the only one that can fill the God shaped void in your heart or that he is your purpose or he is the path to peace, but that he is the only one that can save your soul, he is the only one who can and did fulfill the requirements of a just and holy God, he is the only one that can reconcile you back to God. He was and is perfect and compared to him you are not, but he offers his life for you to receive.