Good News for the Guilty

God tells us the truth about ourselves. Why would he do otherwise? There is no reason for God, who is truth and loves truth, to do anything else but tell us the truth about ourselves. The testimony of God is we are guilty of breaking His commands, and not just a little bit, but in total. Not just a few bad things here and there, but we are not what we ought to be, from the inside out. We don't love our neighbor as we ought. We don't love God with all our heart and strength. In truth, we don't love Him at all. That's God's testimony about us in the Bible. Horatius Boner wrote, "Conviction of sin is just the sinner seeing himself as he is, and as God has all along seen him."
 
What are we to do? You cannot come to God on the grounds of what he has already condemned. The Lord has judged us guilty, and our hearts set at enmity against us. We can't very well come to God and offer him our hearts. The only way we can come to God is by a way that He has accepted, the way God Himself has given. It's a way outside of ourselves. Our only hope is Christ. We cannot come to God to offer something to gain his forgiveness, nor can we come to God to do something to earn peace because we are sinners.

The Pharisees tried to clean up the outside of the cup, but that didn't do them any good because they were filthy on the inside. They tried every way possible to avoid touching, eating, tasting, to stay clean, but it wasn't that which went in that was the problem, but that which came out of the heart. If anyone could have come to God by their outward works and found peace with God through praying, fasting, working, zeal, and personal righteousness, it would have been Paul. No one had a pedigree like him. But he said all his righteousness was like dung (Philippians 3:8). His only hope was outside of himself because he was the problem. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. He came to clean them of their sins and also justify us. God imputed to us Christ's perfect righteousness. There is forgiveness of sins, and there is perfect righteousness and perfect obedience given to us by faith. Christ kept the law for us. Paul would happily give up his righteousness for what Christ had done for him.
 
You can't get yourself right to come to Christ. You can't pray yourself right to come to Christ. You can come as you are, or you can't come at all. Christ came to save sinners. Not decent people. Not people who try hard and are doing better. Christ came to save sinners. As the hymn says,  

"Come, ye weary, heavy laden, 

lost and ruined by the fall; 

if you tarry till you're better, 

you will never come at all."

Come to the Saviour and find peace with God.