I Can’t Do This!
Rolling back the clock forty-nine years, I think back to the time I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior. A lot of things led up to my coming to faith in Him, but there was one thing I was thinking about today that I needed to get through my head before I was ready to trust Him. I had to embrace the reality that I can’t do this!
As a kid I had exposure to various churches and a lot of what you’d call “religion”. As a little kid I sorted through what I knew about the question of my going to heaven, and I arrived at the conclusion that I really don’t think anyone taught me. I decided that, when I died, God would take a scale and put my good works on one side, and my bad works on the other and whichever one weighed the most would get me in. But as time went on, I was really not sure which way it would tilt!
What if I Killed Someone???
Somewhere around third grade I was watching a show called The Green Hornet. At the end of one of the episodes, the Green Hornet had caught the bad guy, and the camera at the end of the show focused on a shot of the electric chair, where that bad guy was going to end up. I was horrified, and wondered what would happen if I killed someone? I ran to my Mom, and her response was, “Oh, you’re a good boy, you’d never do that”. But I was not so sure. That was when Sirhan B. Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy and got the death penalty. But California abolished the death penalty, so he got life without parole. So, I figured someday I would move to a non-death penalty state, just in case!
I lost sleep for a number of years over whether or not I would go to heaven. So, I asked God to give me a LONG life. I thought maybe when I was a grownup my good deeds would accelerate, but that did not sound realistic. My soul was tormented; I knew, deep down inside, that I can’t do this! It was quite true that I couldn’t do this, but I was to find out that that was part of the good news!
Trying to Be Good Enough
I went to a youth meeting, and they were sharing what they called testimonies about how God had worked in their life. I have always been a speech maker, so I started working up a religious talk in case the leader called on me; and, thankfully, he did not, because I had nothing to share. But one girl’s testimony was this, that she’d tried and tried to be religious, or to be good enough for God, but one day she read this in the Bible, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And she said that she realized that no matter how hard she tried she could not do anything to be good enough, it would always fall short. Hey, I was listening!
What she shared was, that because she could do nothing to come to God that Jesus did it for us! He died on the cross for our sins! And it is not about a religion, it is about a relationship with Him! She said she had prayed and asked Jesus to come into her heart, and He did, and now she was sure she had a relationship with God and eternal life.
I Can’t Do This, But HE Can!
My thoughts were spinning, and the next day, our leader told us it was time to have a “quiet time”. We were to pick a spot alone in the church, read something in the Bible, and talk to God about something we needed to talk to Him about. I had no idea what to read, I think I got the idea from a sticker or a patch on someone’s jeans, that said, One Way – JESUS John 14:6. So I looked that one up. “Jesus *said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’”. That girl said she prayed and asked Jesus to come into her heart, and I knew that was what I needed too. So, I did, He came into my heart, and He still lives there! I can’t do this, but HE CAN!
I tell you what, my first evidence was that I could sleep well at night, because from day one, there was no doubt that I was going to heaven. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). I can’t do this, but HE CAN!
