Not good enough. How’s that make you feel? I can tell you. It makes me feel like CRAP... useless and worthless (and before judging me for using that word... look it up... it’s in the Bible... DUNG... same difference). There’s a myth going around... it’s all over the place. People set up standards that they believe others should meet... people set up conditions in their own minds... and it’s ALL untrue. I’m not good enough... you’re not good enough... do this, do that and then you’ll be ready. I think I’ll start going to church AFTER I stop ____________ (fill in the blank). You can serve the Lord when you ______________ (fill in the blank). Requirements. Stipulations. LIES.

It’s time we put a STOP to it.

If you want to know the Truth... God doesn’t operate like that. Let’s take a look at the history:

Noah: passed out drunk and naked... God calls him a righteous man.

Abraham: speech impediment, fearful, cowardly... God calls him a man of faith.

David: adulterer, murderer, lazy, greedy... God calls him a man after his own heart.

We as humans, love to focus on our weakness and failings... God doesn’t do that. He doesn’t use our faults to beat us down... make us feel bad... or disqualify us. He definitely wants us to be aware of, and sorry for our mistakes... to come to him, confess, be forgiven and sin no more... but in the process, he loves, forgives, encourages, and hopes for us.

Here are more examples as we move to the New Testament in Jesus day:

Judas: knowing that Judas would betray him Jesus kept him in his inner circle and continued to love, encourage and trust him (Judas was the treasurer - guy who handles the money) even when he KNEW it was to no avail.

Peter: a headstrong and impetuous man who boasted of his bravery, but when the time came, his courage failed him... yet Jesus always loved him and restored him when he needed it, and he went on to be a big part of building the Church.

Paul: Christian hater, instrumental in the deaths of many who loved Jesus... but Jesus met him where he was and in the end Paul wrote most of the New Testament.

These are only a few examples of the kind of people God loves and accepts. It’s that love and acceptance that spurred these people on to become the greatness God had planned for them all along.

If anyone (including yourself) tries to tell you that you are not ‘good enough’ remember... Jesus loves us just as we are and he will make us into who he wants us to be as we come closer to him through that love... and don’t you forget it! Let no one disqualify you.

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

Colossians 2:18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19 He has lost connection with the Head (Jesus), from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.