Most of us need to wear hats that have, “This space for rent” or “Too far gone,” stenciled on them. And then there is the infamous paraphrased saying: “They still have me to kick around!”

The only reason any of us have any hope of making it through the day or through the night is not because we are looking for loopholes in the Bible, but because we realize that our own goodness is, as the songwriter once sang about, “There's a dead skunk in the middle of the road, smelling up the highway.”

Explanation? The best we can offer to a holy God is our sins. Our salvation is like someone going through a caution light just before it turns red or someone escaping walls of fire in a burning building, a branch pulled out of the fire. The Apostle Peter under inspiration put it this way, “If those who have spiritual life are barely saved then what will become of those who don't?” There are those who have discovered God's mercy at the last moment of their lives, but why wait?

The ideas that there are just as many hypocrites on the golf course as there are in the church may be valid, but the latter aren't doing it “in the name of the Lord!” And the Apostle Paul didn't make a poverty vow, but stated that he didn't make a dime when he ministered to the Corinthian church. How different now!

While some of our Jewish brethren are still looking for their Messiah, the Messianic Jews and believing Gentiles have already “been there and done that!”

True belief and true repentance through the totally unearned grace of God is the only way.

For example, the best thing for anyone who is one of “America's most wanted” and for anyone, is to turn ourselves in to our God and Saviour and find forgiveness through His Son! May God bless the reader.

Norm J. Barlow

Fayetteville

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