"Here's good news for you," said a servant of Christ one day as he handed a gospel tract to an old shopkeeper.
"There's plenty of bad news about," she replied. "Yes, but this is good; it is about the Lord Jesus Christ, and salvation through Him."
"Oh, well, I know all about that. I know the way to be saved."
"Do you? Then tell me the way," he responded.
"Well, there are three things. You must be honest, you must be truthful, and you must be faithful."
The Lord's servant took out his pencil and quietly wrote them down, slowly repeating them one after another as he did so. Then he said, "If you have been all that, I have not!"
"Well, we must do our best!"
"You mean that if we are partly honest, partly truthful, partly faithful it will be enough?"
Slapping her hand down on the counter she said; "No partly about it! You MUST be these three things!"
"Then what good news can there be for me? For I have not always been either honest, truthful or faithful. It is no use saying "must" to me when I have not done all this. What hope is there for me?" By this time another customer had entered the little shop and began to try to help the old woman out of her difficulty.
"Oh, you can't do these things altogether! At least, I can't. If I am in it all right one minute I am out of it the next. Sometimes I feel so bad that I think I'm not fit to live!"
"What do you do then?"
"Oh, I feel if I am as black as coal I can go and promise God that I'll do better."
Poor souls! How pitiful to see them groping in darkness, hoping all would work out at the end. They did not see that their salvation did not depend on their being what they ought to be, but on Christ declaring what God is.
There are thousands in this sad plight. Man has utterly failed. He has not been what he ought to be, but that does not set aside what God is. And "God is love."
It is the gospel of God. It is the news of the way God has declared His goodness in meeting man's badness. It is not a question of whether I have been honest, but of how God can be just in saving me.
What a blessed contrast between trying to be what I ought to be, and accepting what God is for me! What God is in grace just suits a repentant sinner confessing his sins. He need not wait until he can tell God how perfectly he has fulfilled his duty in the past, nor till he can faithfully promise he will do so in the future. He may come at once, come without hesitation and confess all that he is and all that he has done to God. It was so with the prodigal son and with the dying thief, and it is so with every sinner who honestly takes his place before God. May it be so with you!
The Free Gift
A sinner can only have eternal life as "a free gift" from God. Thousands refuse it because they are too proud to be saved on God's terms of free grace-unmerited favor.