Tuesday Answers

Well, if you didn't get a chance to read Friday's post, I had posed a few questions to which I asked you all to really think deeply about and I also said that I would as well.  So I'm here to post my answers to these questions as best as I can.

1) Can you think back to a time in your life where you have done or said something that you knew was wrong, even though you didn't break the law?

A:  Of course I can, and I don't have to look back very far to find one.

2) Why are those things wrong, if they didn't really break any law that our city, state, or nation has set into place?

A:  It seems obvious that there must be some other law that I am breaking.

3) If you're not guilty before mankind (city, state, or national law) for doing these wrong things, then before whom does your guilt lay?

A:  I would be guilty before whoever put those laws in place and stands in judgment over them.

4) What do you do with your guilt?

A:  I have to pay for it or reconcile it.

Now this last answer, in my mind, quickly leads to a follow-up question:  "How do I pay for it?".  And this is where the subject really begins to get meaty and a one sentence answer won't suffice. 

So, how do we pay for it?  Do we do more good things than we do bad things?  If so, what's the grading scale?  Does helping a little old lady across the street count as 2 good points and giving money to an orphanage count as 3 good points and stealing a dollar out of my mom's purse count as 3 bad points?  Is there a curve when it's all said and done "because, sure, I've done some bad things and some wrong things, but you know, Whoever-You-Are-That-Determines-What's-Good-And-What's-Bad, I've been such a good person, and I've got a good heart and I went to church every Sunday and I helped out a charity and I was a humanitarian"?

Does it seem like we can't get an answer without another question?
_________________________________________________________________________________
So, here's where I'll put down my thoughts on this to sum up.  The reasoning I've just explained is probably the most common used among us as humans, but it's ultimate goal is only to make us unaccountable to anyone or any God.  Is it really that hard to believe that there is a God who made this world?  A God who created the things we can't explain, but know exist, like "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong"?  A God so perfect, that not one of us has any chance in and of ourselves to pay off our guilt?  You see, if we just look logically at our world, we will ultimately come to the conclusion that God does have to exist, and you know what, He told us what he is like, too.  He is holy, completely just and completely unable to be in the presence of anything less than utter perfection.  Given our absolute inability to be perfect and the fact that this God is as much loving as He is holy, He cloaked His diety, His Godness, and lived life as a man here on earth.  He worked, he sweat, he ate and drank (which means he had to relieve himself, too), he cried, he grieved, maybe he got sick or ill (I don't know that for sure, but it's possible).  The point is, he experienced everything we experience here on earth, the highs and the lows, the exaltations, the humiliations, and is able to sympathize with us in our sorrows and pain.  Then He willingly died to pay the penalty for our guilt that we could not, because, you see, this guilt that you and I carry around can only be paid for with a life.  Not money, not land or property or possessions.  A life.  But this God gave us a way out of our guilt debt by offering His own life.

So, I'll ask you again.  What do you do with your guilt?  Because it will be paid for when you pass from this life.  The final question will be:  Who will pay for it?  You?  Or Him.