You Will Never Be Good Enough To Get Into Heaven (Unless You’re Ricky Gervais)
I am sitting outside Cafe Helios in Raleigh, NC, having just finished reading an essay by Ricky Gervais published in the Wall Street Journal about why he–an Atheist–is a better Christian than most Christians. He follows all the rules in the Christian rulebook. (I am not sure what he’s referring to there. I must have skipped the class where they passed out this syllabus full of rules when I became a Christian. #justanotherheathen)
A few tables over from me sits a young man lounging back and smoking Clove cigarettes, slurping down copious amounts of coffee. What appears to be an anthology of C.S. Lewis’s greatest hits sits a top the table, and in his lap: the Bible, which he studies intently. Me, I get up and walk over to this guy’s table. I introduce myself. We shake hands. His name is Paul. I ask him without any prelude, “If you could change anything about the current state of Christianity, what would you change?”
And I’m asking this because I’m thinking that Gervais had some pretty good arguments. He brought up a lot of hard truths. Christians are just in it for the prize of eternal life. Our Christians are nothing like our Christ. We have no way of being sure if there is a God. The Christian God appears racist and homophobic, and as a result, so are most Christians.
Paul looked up–seemingly unfazed by the wild-haired, sleep-deprived stranger who just sat down at his table without being invited–as though he’d been expecting me all along, and said, “The church has drifted far from what it originally intended to be. And it’s my job as a Christian to seek the truth.”
I’ve read a few essays by Gervais. The guy makes me laugh. You’re a talented fellow, Ricky. In fact, you’re good at what you do. Then you go digging up the Ten Commandments and claim to not have broken one of them.
So you’re good. But you’re not that good.
But clearly you are a better Christian than me. Because me, well, I’ve broken 9 out of 10 of those suckers. I even do a few things not mentioned there that I’m positive would make Christians everywhere squirm in their seats and bathe in Holy Water after reading this. But thank the very God you don’t believe in that He loves me just as much as He loves you.
Because it’s too bad you, me, and everyone else reading this thing will never be good enough to get into heaven.
If you think being a Christian is about being good and obeying the Ten Commandments then you’ve missed the point of Christianity entirely.
P.S. Racking off the Ten Commandments, claiming to have never sinned, seems a bit vain if you ask me. But what do I know. I’m just a Christian.
I get it. Atheism and Scientology are in. Jesus is out.
What is it people dislike about Jesus?
“It’s us,” Paul answered. “None of us are living like Christ. Here’s the thing, you have to believe one of three things: You believe everything Jesus had to say and did, you believe he was a lunatic, or that he was a liar.”
Hey, sure, the idea of Jesus is awesome. He taught on forgiveness, compassion, healing, loving those who hate you. All good things. Yet you claim it’s impossible he performed miracles; you reject his resurrection.
Deciding not to believe in those things is claiming that Jesus is a liar. Stark raving mad. Yet you want to believe he had good things to say? He was a liar. You don’t believe liars. You believe the world would be a better place if we all lived like a man who claims to have risen from the dead. This lunatic. But you’ll trust that his radical ideas are worth following?
You, Ricky Gervais, pick and choose what you want to hear and believe.
Just like the rest of us.
How, Ricky, are you any better than the very Christians who make you upset? The same Christians you say, “…pick and choose what they want to believe?”
I don’t disagree with Mr. Gervais’s view on Christianity. In fact, sadly enough, he is spot on with the way we as Christians behave. Obsessed with rules and regulations, abstinence and purity. Acting as though sexual sin is the worst of it. Something we cannot recover from. Something that after we’ve engaged in, we need more prayer, more time in the Bible, and more time with God.
Yet when we lie, we think nothing of it.
When we lust after women in magazines and fantasize about men on the streets, we go about our day as if all is normal.
Coveting good looks.
Wishing for her hair, her face, her smile.
We drink too much on Saturday, but everything is okay as long as we are worshiping in church on Sunday.
We are obsessed with legalism and tithing on every cent we earn, but we won’t give a dollar to the homeless on the street.
As Christians, we are cut from the same cloth as the very murderers and adulterers and homosexuals we protest against and condemn to hell. (Matt 23:32)
God sees all. sin. equally.
The things Christ said were essential, “justice, fairness, and mercy,” we pick and choose how and where to apply them, when to use them, and who deserves them. (Matt. 23:24)
How screwed up is that?
So, Ricky, I know that I am nobody important and cannot make up for all that has happened in your life; the rotten things you have seen Christians do, but I’d like to apologize for the way we’ve behaved. I’m sorry that Christians seem to have more to say with their lips than they have to show with their lives. The type of Christianity our Hollywood displays is not the Christ of the Bible. So many of us are so terribly wrong. And that’s good news. I do not want to follow a hypocritical religion, a God that is anti-gay and full of hate for you because you don’t believe in Him.
Do you want to know how easy it is to get into heaven?
Just believe.
That’s it.
Which is great.
Because I don’t know how to be good. I try to be good, but my sin so often overtakes me.
That criminal being crucified right along with Jesus, the criminal who spent his life as a thief, living as a dishonest man, who, at the very moment before his death, calls out to Christ and asks not to be forgotten. Confesses that he believes.
And Jesus replies, “…on this day you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Wow.
This thief, this criminal, this hardened man, just got into heaven and I’m sure he broke all kinds of commandments.
I have not devoted my life to Christ because it’s an insurance policy. I am following Christ because living for Him is the least I can do after He got nailed to a wooden cross for me.
Our problem is we are too often trying to follow Christians instead of following God.
We are imperfect people trying to deliver a perfect word.
So I apologize for arrogance, our know-it-all attitudes, and our judgmental nature.
I ask you, have you ever been in love? Can you prove love to me? Go ahead, show me love. Describe it to me. Tell me all the details.
You know what love is, right? You’ve felt it. I know you have. Whether it be from your mother, your father, your siblings, friends, wife, husband, or significant other. You’ve felt it. But you can’t prove it to me. There is nothing you can say to fully convince me what love is, what it feels like, and that you have even felt it.
Yet we are all convinced it exists.
The same way you know you’ve been in love and recognize love is the same way I know God exists. I cannot prove Him to you, the same way you cannot prove love to me.
But you’ve felt love.
And I have felt God.
Read A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I Make A Good Christian
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