Jesus Makes Us Acceptable to God - August 2, 2013

Romans 4:25
25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.

2 Corinthians 5:21
21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Jesus' death and resurrection make us acceptable to God.

I've been a pastor now for more than 30 years, and I've talked to tens of thousands of people. I've found that most people really don't like themselves inside.

We don't accept ourselves, and so we spend our lives trying to find acceptance among other people; but even more important than being accepted by other people is being accepted by God. That's a problem. Why? Because God is perfect and we're not.

God lives in a perfect place called heaven, so God has a problem. How does he get imperfect people into a perfect place where he is perfect? God has to come up with a plan for imperfect people to be able to live in a perfect place.

The Bible says, "God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God's goodness into us!" (2 Corinthians 5:21 LB)

I don't know how to make it any clearer than to say it like this: You're never going to be good enough to get into heaven because it's perfect and you stopped being perfect a long time ago. It is Christ's goodness in you that makes you acceptable.