The One Truth We Cannot Afford to Overlook

Why Jesus Came

Before we talk about discovering your purpose, rebuilding your life, strengthening your marriage, overcoming destructive habits, becoming a better leader, healing from your past, or becoming the person God created you to be, there is a truth we need to confront. In fact, everything else we discuss through Relentless Reminders is secondary to it.

Human beings have an extraordinary capacity for changing things. We build cities, cure diseases, cross oceans, explore space, create businesses, rebuild relationships, and overcome circumstances that once appeared impossible. Give us a problem and enough time, resources, and determination, and we will usually attempt to solve it. But there is one problem mankind cannot solve: we cannot save ourselves.

That is why Jesus came.

Something Was Terribly Wrong

Christianity doesn't begin with the message that you need to become a better version of yourself. It begins with a much more difficult truth: you are a sinner. So am I.

Scripture doesn't leave much room for negotiation:

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”— Romans 3:23 KJV

Notice the word all. That includes the murderer and the missionary, the addict and the abstainer, the prisoner and the pastor, the person whose life is visibly falling apart and the person sitting comfortably in a church pew every Sunday morning. Our sins may look different, but our condition is the same.

And sin carries a consequence:

“For the wages of sin is death...”— Romans 6:23 KJV

That's the bad news. And until we understand the bad news, the Gospel will never sound nearly as good as it actually is.

Why Would Jesus Leave Heaven?

Approximately seven centuries before the birth of Christ, Isaiah wrote about Someone who was coming:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”— Isaiah 61:1 KJV

Centuries passed. Then one day Jesus walked into a synagogue in Nazareth. He was handed the book of Isaiah, found this passage, and began reading:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”— Luke 4:18 KJV

Then He closed the book. Everyone watched Him, and Jesus said:

“This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”— Luke 4:21 KJV

Think about what He was saying. The One Isaiah told you was coming is here.

Jesus wasn't announcing another religion. He was announcing a rescue mission. Humanity was separated from God by sin, incapable of repairing that separation ourselves. No amount of money could purchase our redemption. No collection of good deeds could erase our guilt. Religion couldn't accomplish it. Morality couldn't accomplish it. So God did something we could never have done for ourselves.

He came to us.

The Shepherd Came for the Sheep

Jesus later described Himself this way:

“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”— John 10:11 KJV

Look carefully at the picture accompanying this article. The sheep isn't fighting the wolves. It isn't becoming stronger so that someday it can defeat them, and it isn't negotiating its release. It is being rescued by someone stronger than itself.

That's the Gospel. We sometimes turn Christianity into a message about human improvement when Christianity is fundamentally a message about divine rescue. Jesus Christ lived the sinless life we could not live. He went willingly to the cross. There He bore our sin. He died. He was buried. And three days later, He rose from the dead.

Paul summarized the Gospel plainly:

“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”— I Corinthians 15:3–4 KJV

Jesus didn't come to make good people slightly better. He came to save sinners. People like me.

But Don't I Need to Change First?

This is where I believe Christianity has sometimes made the Gospel harder to understand than Scripture does. Perhaps you've heard the phrase, “Turn from your sins and come to Jesus.”

If that means you must stop sinning, reform your behavior, overcome your addictions, repair your life, and demonstrate that you're serious enough before Christ will save you, then we have put the cart before the horse. How can an unsaved person produce the transformed Christian life before receiving the One who makes transformation possible?

The Bible calls us to repentance and faith. Repentance does not mean successfully repairing your life so God will accept you. The Greek word commonly translated repentance, metanoia, conveys a change of mind—a reconsideration that, in the Gospel context, changes how we understand God, ourselves, our sin, and Jesus Christ.

I once believed one thing. Then I encountered the truth. Now I see it differently.

And Scripture gives us an extraordinary picture of exactly that.

The Thief Who Couldn't Fix Anything

Jesus was crucified between two criminals. Matthew tells us that those crucified with Him initially mocked Him, but something changed in one of them. As he hung dying beside Jesus, he rebuked the other criminal:

“Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.”— Luke 23:40–41 KJV

Something had happened inside this man's thinking. He saw himself differently: “We indeed justly.” He saw Jesusdifferently: “This man hath done nothing amiss.”

Then he did something remarkable. He looked at a bloodied, beaten man dying on the cross beside him and said:

“Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”— Luke 23:42 KJV

Don't miss what happened here. Everything visible suggested Jesus was defeated, yet somehow this dying criminal had become convinced that the man hanging beside him was Lord, that death wasn't going to end His story, and that He possessed a kingdom. The light came on. He once saw Jesus one way; now he saw Him differently.

And he trusted Him.

What happened next is one of the most beautiful exchanges in all of Scripture:

“Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”— Luke 23:43 KJV

The thief couldn't climb down from his cross and reform his life. He couldn't return what he'd stolen, join a church, get baptized, or spend the next thirty years proving his conversion was genuine. He couldn't do anything to earn salvation.

He could only believe. And Jesus saved him.

Saul Had His Own Light-Bulb Moment

Consider Saul of Tarsus. Saul wasn't an atheist; he was intensely religious. He sincerely believed Jesus Christ was wrong, Christians were wrong, and he was right.

Then, on the road to Damascus, everything Saul believed collided with reality:

“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”— Acts 9:4 KJV

Saul responded:

“Who art thou, Lord?”

Then came the answer that shattered his entire worldview:

“I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”— Acts 9:5 KJV

Imagine that moment. Jesus is who He said He was—which means Saul had been wrong.

That's repentance in living color.

Saul's transformed life would follow, and what a transformation it would be. But his changed life did not produce his encounter with Christ. His encounter with Christ produced his changed life. Don't reverse the order.

So What Must I Do?

Perhaps someone reading this has spent years believing salvation is complicated. Interestingly, somebody in Scripture asked almost exactly this question.

The Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas:

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”— Acts 16:30 KJV

If salvation required a lengthy checklist, this was the perfect opportunity to provide one. Their answer was remarkably simple:

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved...”— Acts 16:31 KJV

Believe. Not merely believe that Jesus existed. Satan knows Jesus exists. Biblical faith means trust.

You believe God's testimony concerning your sin. You believe what God says concerning His Son. You believe Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose again. And because you believe what God has said, you place the weight of your eternity upon Jesus Christ rather than upon yourself.

Paul writes:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”— Romans 4:5 KJV

That's almost offensive to human pride because we desperately want to contribute something. God says Christ has already done what was necessary.

Maybe Today Is Your Light-Bulb Moment

Perhaps you've always thought Christianity was about becoming religious. Maybe you thought salvation meant promising God you would stop doing bad things. Maybe you believed your good deeds had to outweigh your bad ones, that being baptized saved you, or that attending church your entire life automatically made you a Christian. Maybe you decided long ago that none of this was true. Or maybe you knew all the terminology without ever understanding what it actually meant.

Then consider the possibility that the Gospel has confronted something you previously believed today. I once saw it one way. Now I see it differently. That's repentance.

Now comes the question of faith: Will you believe God?

Jesus Christ has already done the saving work. You don't need to make yourself worthy enough for Him because you can't. Neither can I. That's why grace is grace.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”— Ephesians 2:8–9 KJV

If today you understand that you're a sinner who cannot save yourself, and you now believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, trust Him. You can call upon Him right where you are.

There isn't a magical prayer that saves you, and there aren't special words that unlock Heaven. Christ saves. Talk to Him. Tell Him you believe Him. Tell Him you're trusting Jesus Christ rather than yourself, and rest your eternity on the promise of God:

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”— Romans 10:13 KJV

And Then Transformation Begins

Now we can finally talk about transforming lives—not before. Christianity isn't fundamentally about turning over a new leaf; it's about receiving a new life.

The Holy Ghost takes up residence in the believer. Then begins the work of sanctification—the often difficult, sometimes painfully slow process through which God changes how we think, what we desire, how we behave, how we love, how we forgive, how we respond to temptation, and ultimately how we live.

Will you suddenly become perfect? Absolutely not. If that were the standard, I'd have been thrown out of the program a long time ago. But you will no longer be walking alone.

And now the words we've been using for the past several weeks finally come together. Teaching Truth begins with the truth about who we are and who Jesus Christ is. Igniting Purpose begins when a redeemed person realizes his life belongs to Someone greater than himself. Transforming Lives begins when the God who saved us starts doing inside us what we could never accomplish on our own.

That is why Jesus left the glory of Heaven and came into this broken world. That is why He went to the cross. That is why He rose again.

And that is why He came for a wretch like me.

He came to save.