From Crimson Red to Snow White and the Chasm Between

Have you felt like you’re not good enough for God’s love? Come on, be honest. Most of us have asked ourselves the question, “Why would God love me?” When we retreat to the dusty corners of our existence and evaluate what we have done, good and bad, we usually find a whole lot of garbage that we don’t really want to acknowledge. You can call it “mistakes” or “failures”, “bad decisions” or “sin.” You’re not the only one that has done that. You want to believe that you are good enough to earn a stroll down the streets of gold. You hope that you have done what it takes to reserve your room in that heavenly mansion. But you look at all that garbage and you think that the pearly gates will have a sign with your name and “DO NOT ENTER” in bold letters. Either that or you disregard your own evil tendencies, focusing only on the evil others perpetrate against you. You don’t evaluate your own actions much. “I’m generally a good person. I can live with myself.” You then go along your merry way of daily existence.

If you read my last blog post, The Croods, an UFC Figher, and Nothing is Wasted, you know that I believe that nothing is wasted according to God’s economy. Your mistakes, failures, bad decisions, even sins, do not have to be considered as wasted when you properly address them according to the truth of who God is and who God wants you to be.

There are lots of things that the Bible calls out as “sin.” But first, if you’re not too familiar with that word, the simple definition would be to purposefully disobey God’s law, going against His nature and what He designed for you. The Bible tells us about literally hundreds of things that are condemned by God, or considered sin. Most people are familiar with the 10 Commandments. They are found in the Old Testament book of Exodus, chapter 20 and in the classic Charlton Heston film by the same name. But that’s only a starting point in terms of what God expects.

Here’s the deal. According to God’s Word, sin separates us from Him. That means that our disobedience of our Creator-Father creates a gap between us and Him, because God, as our Creator, is perfect and He can’t really accept our imperfection. You had no idea that you actually create something in relation to God, did you? This chasm separates us not only in space but in time; for eternity. Yet God, as our Father, loves us with a love that we can’t even comprehend. He is deeply saddened by the chasm that we have created. Think about that for a moment. If you have children, think about your relationship to your children, how much you love them, how much you would do anything to hold them close. Think about the horrific heartbreak of eternal separation from them. So there is a cataclysmic, eternal-size dilemma that requires a solution.

It’s a good thing a perfect God is able to come up with a perfect solution. It is such a simple solution that men and women have missed it for centuries. It takes one action and only one action. Here it is: Give His Son, Jesus, your life. That’s it. That’s all there is. “Well, that’s too easy. There’s got to be more I need to do to bridge the gap my sin has created.” Nope, that’s it. Why is that it? It is because Jesus built the bridge for you. He has already done what it takes to close the gap, to fill the chasm that separated you from Creator-Father. He did it by paying the penalty for your sin by dying a sinner’s death though He Himself was perfect and without sin. I that very act Jesus has taken care of the consequences of your sin and repaired the separation between you and God.

You and I could never be good enough to make up for our sin. You see, if you go back to the hundreds of sins that the Bible identifies, you have to be honest and admit that you will never be able to keep from committing at least 1 every day if not almost every minute. Add those up over a lifetime; 525,600 minutes equals a year in a life (365 days) multiplied by the average life expectancy of 70.5 years equals 25,732.5 days of your life. Just one sin a year is over 70 sins in a lifetime. One sin a day certainly qualifies you as imperfect; a sinner. How would you ever make that up in terms of satisfying a perfect God?

So, as I see it, we have 2 choices; 1) we can decide that the Bible is not the Word of God and is wrong about sin and separation and perfection and all that stuff. So we ignore it and consider those that believe it to be foolish. As C.S. Lewis puts it in a series of BBC radio talks later published as the book Mere Christianity, we would have to think of Jesus as either a liar or a lunatic*; or 2) We can believe what God says, believe Jesus is Lord, and trust His solution and give Him our lives. There really is no in-between. I have met many people on my journey who have decided that the first choice is the logical choice for them. Regardless of the evidence to the contrary, they are unable to wrap their minds around the concept of a Creator-Father that would require a sinless life from His creation. The beautiful thing about God is that He gives us all the freedom in the world to choose. With freedom comes consequences. But many wonderful people I know and love exercise the freedom not to believe in God. I have come to believe that there is more freedom in the second choice.

I had an interesting series of conversations about God and Jesus and heaven with one of those friends years ago. I wrapped up the conversations with a statement and a question that she told me haunted her for months afterward. Here’s what I said. “If you’re right and I’m wrong, we're both OK when we die.” Essentially if there is no God or no separation from Him because of sin we would both be OK because hell isn’t real, so there would be no consequences of sin. By the way, hell is the Biblical place of the eternal consequence of separation from God because of sin. Then I asked this question. “If I’m right and you’re wrong, where does that leave you?” Now I’m not really a gambling man, but those are some stakes work carefully considering.

So back to my original question. Have you felt like you’re not good enough for God’s love? Why would God love me?” Whether you have wrestled with this question, if you haven’t contemplated this question or you have dismissed it altogether, I have good news for all of us. The good news comes from God Himself, from the book of Isaiah, in the Old Testament. Let me paraphrase the small translated differences into one promising message: “Come now and let’s deliberate over the next steps to take together. Let’s argue this matter and settle it once and for all. I have promised you this over and over,” says the Lord. “This is My message: Though your sins are like scarlet (they’re literally blood-red, and they stain you that color), I will make them be as white as snow (snow-white; like bright, new-fallen snow); though they are red as crimson (that deep red color), they shall be like pure wool (Is. 1:18, see translations below).”

Many of you who are Christians have read this post and at first-glance assumed that I have an audience of people who have not yet trusted Christ. I do have those in my audience and to those of you that believe differently than I do, thank you so much for reading my blog. But the sad reality is that there are so many Christians who do not live in the freedom that God has for them because they, too, do not really understand the love that God has for them. His love is beyond what words can adequately describe. I have, however, found some words that have effectively impacted many Christians and non-

Christians alike with their profound meaning. It’s called The Simple Gospel: “God loves you! As much as the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. Because of what Christ did on the cross, God can’t love you any more and He cannot and will not love you any less.  It isn’t because of what you have done or have not done.  God simply loves you! And all the power that raised Christ from the dead is available to you from the Holy Spirit. All you have to do is ask.”

Today, if you have never trusted Jesus to save you from the separation from God, simply start the conversation by saying to Him, “Jesus, I give you my life.” That prayer is the beginning of what will be a lifetime of conversations with your Creator-Father. If you have trusted Him but want to understand the love of God in a deeper way than ever before, I challenge you to pray “The Simple Gospel” above and replace the pronoun “you” with “me.” Then commit to praying it every day, or several times a day if need be. Do that for a month and see how your heart and mind are changed. The words are not magic. It’s not a mindless mantra that you should do without thinking. It is words full of truth that should help you to understand how God is thinking about you right now.

If you prayed either or both of the above prayers, I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments section below or via email or FB Messenger. And as always…

thanks for reading.

 

* ”Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” is a trilemma (a choice among three options, each of which is in part difficult to accept), an apologetic argument traditionally used to argue for the divinity of Jesus, pointing out the only alternatives. In addition to C.S. Lewis making this argument famous, the argument in various forms was used by American preacher Mark Hopkins in 1846, Scots preacher John Duncan around 1859, N.P. Williams, Reuben Archer Torrey, and writer G.K. Chesterton, in his book The Everlasting Man (1925) which Lewis cited as the second book that most influenced him.

 

Isaiah 1:18 NIV “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

Isaiah 1:18-20 The Message “Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.” This is God’s Message: “If your sins are blood-red, they’ll be snow-white. If they’re red like crimson, they’ll be like wool.

Isaiah 1:18 TPT Come now and let’s deliberate over the next steps to take together. Yahweh promises you over and over: “Though your sins stain you like scarlet, I will whiten them like bright, new-fallen snow! Even though they are deep red like crimson, they will be made white like wool!”