What the Gospel ain't.....

I messed up. I have to admit it. Ruth asked me before she left for morning class if I could take the already cooked garbanzo beans mash them up and blend the final ingredients together for yummy hummus for tonight. I said, "Sure! No problem, honey." So after she left I looked at the recipe mashed the cooked garbanzo beans with our pastry blender, added the mashed garlic, the lemon juice, the tahini, the cumin, the salt to the garbanzo beans , and I saw that there was one more ingredient: baking soda. "Baking soda?" I thought, "That doesn't seem to fit...but hey, that is what the recipie calls for." After I blended all those things together I had to sample it to see how my 'first hummus' turned out. I stuck my finger down in the brown mixture gave it a swirl and popped some in my mouth. It tasted funny...it tasted like baking soda. Sort of a garlicy toothpaste kind of concoction. So I quickly stirred the mixture some more to see if I didn't stir it well enough, but afterwards it still tasted funny. I then looked back at the recipie to see if I added too much baking soda, but no, I did exactly what it called for. So I was confused...so I looked back at the recipie more carefully and with amazment I saw that the baking soda was to be added when the garbanzo beans were cooking to remove bad flavor.

But, of course, Ruth already cooked the garbanzo beans last night! So I should have never added the baking soda!

So there I was....stuck with toothpasty hummus. When Ruth came home from class I told her all about it and she tried it...She laughed and said, "Wow! It really tastes like baking soda! Ha ha!" and then she planted a big kiss on my cheek.

Now, Ruth didn't care that I goobered up the hummus, but I felt kind of bad that I ruined it, and Ruth really likes hummus too. So while walking back home from class I stopped by the store and bought some new chickpeas and a new jar of Tahini (pictured above) so I could make restitution.

I then began to think as I was walking home with my prized groceries in my arms, "Wow, this is exactly how some people view God."

They think, "I know that I've done plenty of wrong things in my life. I've sinned so many times just today that I don't think that my good will outweigh my bad when God evaluates my life and the final judgement. I really need to do something good to counteract and make restitution for the bad things that I've done, and then God will be pleased with me."

But the Bible says that men and women cannot remove the guilt of their own sins. The only thing that they can do is receive the punishment for their sins. And the punishment pronounced on anyone who sins (which is everybody) is the death sentence. That is all you can do with regard to your own sins, you can only receive the death sentence. Do you think that God is running a brownie point system with his world? Those who do more good than bad will make it to heaven!!

No that isn't the truth, The Bible says, "God made Jesus (who knew no sin) to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God."

What does that mean?

Listen to this: On the cross, God treated Jesus as if he had committed the sins of all those who would believe (although he didn't deserve punishment because he was perfect) so that if you trust in Jesus' work on the cross to rescue you from your sin, and stop trying to butter up God with your 'good-deeding', then God will then treat you as if you had lived the perfect life of Jesus (although you haven't lived a perfect life like him).

The great exchange. That is the good news of the cross. Do you believe that or are you like me with the messed up hummus, trying to make things right by your own devices. It may work with messed up cuisine, but it doesn't work for the judgement day.