Whenever I hear about religion, all I really perceive are people saying, "O I'm just trying to earn favor with God; I've done these good deeds, I've done that, and thus I deserve to go to heaven." That just leads to pride. To say that, "I'm a good, genuine, and a nice person," is also a very arrogant statement. Pride and/or arrogance = sin. Religion only attempts to have you cover up the multitude of sins you have committed in your past by doing good deeds. Yet that will never work. If you are guilty before the judge for committing murder, but you sob in "worldly-repentance," crying out to the judge, "I won't do it again! Please!!! Have Mercy!! Don't sentence me to prison! I'll do all the community work! I can be good again!" Sorry buddy, but the world doesn't work that way. Doing good deeds does not cover the fact that you murdered a person, and therefore you will still go to jail. Justice must be served. Now, most of you have heard about the attributes of God: God is love, God is holy, God is righteous, God is just, God is gracious, and God is merciful. We all admit that we've done wrong in our lives and are still doing wrong. Since God is an infinitely holy God, even if you have only committed one sin in your life, it is infinitely heinous in the eyes of God, which gives Him every single right to punish you in hell. This just shows that we can't earn favor with God by being righteous on our own. If God is a holy God, He can't forgive you. All your “good/religious works” before God, is what Isaiah 64:6 describes as a “filthy rag.” Mark Driscoll, a preacher from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, stated that the term filthy rag is really defined in the modern language as a bloody tampon. Religion is truly a bloody tampon in the eyes of a Holy God. In addition, Driscoll stated, “You come to God on the Day of Judgment and say to Him, ‘I have a bloody tampon. Happy Birthday!’” God has hated religion since the beginning of Genesis. We try to be good and all it does is manifest more deceitfulness and evil within our hearts; for we try to be good in feeding our superstitions/self-preservation/self-gain. “If I do something good for a person, I might get lucky today; If I do something moral today, God will reward me well by prospering me; If I do enough good in my life, it can cover up the bad, therefore I will go to heaven; I’m a (professing) Christian, because I go to church every Sunday, or I got baptized, or one time in my life I prayed a prayer in asking Jesus to come into my heart.” We try to believe that any type of religion can lead to a state of selflessness, when in fact there is an underlying tone of major selfishness. Religion does not deliver a person from sin by being good; rather it empowers and promotes sin in our lives with idolatry and pride. Furthermore, it gives no glory to God; only to self.
Who can match God's righteousness? The answer: Only God's Righteousness; and that is only through the perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. He died on the Cross that we may be cleansed from our sins, in order to be declared righteous. No amount of works can ever earn it. It's a gift. You cannot buy something that is given freely to you. You just receive it like a child; like Christmas Present and say, "Thank you LORD for such a wondrous gift, that you would even look upon me with love and send your Son into this world and die for a wicked sinner like me." The more you know how much God loves you and how truly freeing the Gospel really is, the more you will love Him and present yourself a living sacrifice for service unto Him and His glory: "We love because He first loved us." This Christmas, may God help us all to be like children and receive what He has done for us in the Person of Jesus Christ (Matthew 18:3).
Your Joyful Servant in Jesus' Name,
- Michael Liao