Being Good Enough

You are good enough. Did you hear me? You're good enough.

God doesn't ask us to be perfect and then come to him. If that were the case, we'd all be in a world of trouble.

Jesus had these guys that he hung out with. His disciples. Basically a disciple was a pupil. A student. Kind of like most of you. They were just there to learn from the teacher....Jesus. So Jesus spends 3 years wandering around teaching these guys. He teaches them privately. He teaches them with large crowds. He laughs with them. He eats with them. All day. Every day. 3 years. Pretty intimate.

If you've ever gone backpacking for any length of time (more than one night), you find that you get to know the people you're backpacking with pretty well. You talk, you eat, you walk together. Now multiply that out over 3 years.

So these guys got to see Jesus do miracles. They watched as he told people who had been crippled their whole lives to stand up and walk. They saw him take some fish and bread and feed well over 5000 people....and have baskets left over of extra food. They were there.

Guess what? They didn't get it. If you read through the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) you'll find that time after time, they would see Jesus do all this cool stuff....and then they were like....."um, yeah....what just happened?"

This one time Jesus heals this boy that has an evil spirt. They left the area and start to travel. When they reach their destination, Jesus asks them what they were arguing about on the road. They confess they were arguing about who was the greatest. So they watch Jesus perform a miracle. Then they start trying to decide who the coolest is. WHAT?

Jesus outright told them that "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."(Mark 9) and they didn't understand. After Jesus has been crucified and buried...where are the disciples? HIDING in a room. They didn't get it.

So why am I telling you this? What does this have to do with you?

Jesus HAND PICKED this guys to follow him around. He wanted these guys to start telling people about him after he left the earth. He wanted these guys to start the church. These guys. The ones who time and time again, didn't get it.

I'm not close to perfect. I don't "get it" a lot. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what God really wants. I recognize that God is so BIG that I'll never really understand him completely.

I'm going to go out on a limb here....and guess that you're not perfect either. You probably do stupid stuff. My guess is that you have some questions about God. Maybe you even doubt God exists. Maybe you wonder if He's listening.

Here's the great part. God loves you. He has called YOU. He desperately wants to have a major place in your life. He wants to spend time with you. He wants you to love Him. He longs for you. The God who created the universe. Who was around before time began.....is the same God who desires to whisper quietly in your hear and have you hear.

You don't have to be perfect. In fact, I'm pretty sure God knows that you're not going to be. I know for a fact that he loves you anyway. He's like that. He loved a bunch of guys who doubted him. He loves me. He loves you too.