That's Just Wrong

John told me he believes there is no wrong or right- that life is what we make of it. Then I see how his arrogance hurts the people around him, how he hurts me. I know that is wrong.  I tried to talk to my mom about this, but she was just thinking about her new boyfriend. They had a big fight last night and she was still angry enough to yell at me and my little brother before school today. I yelled right back at her and then stormed out, not caring that the door slammed in her face as I left. I knew that both she and I were wrong. There is wrong and right. But where do I look to see what’s right?

               This question could be asked by anyone. We may have asked a question like this ourselves. We must look to Jesus Christ and to His Word, the Bible, to see the source of right. We see people choosing to act in ways that hurt themselves or others and our world is full of wrong because of these choices. In the Bible the list of wrong choices is long:

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They     
           are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God 
           haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey     
           their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Romans 1:29-31

               Sometimes it even seems that “there is no one who does good, not even one,” like Psalm 14:3 says.  If we see someone doing something that is wrong, we know in our hearts that there was a right way. If we turn our gaze to ourselves we see the ways that we also choose wrong instead of right. The idea of wrong and right is “written on our hearts” the Bible says in Romans 2:15. It sounds harsh, but even we can see that the result of wrong living is death. In the Bible it also says that each one is tempted by his own evil desire which leads to sin and eventually to death (James 1:15).  

When we try to do right we don’t succeed. We see in our own actions that we have a sinful nature- a tendency to do wrong. Romans 7:15 says “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” We can feel like we are running in circles, trying our best, but always failing to do what is right. It can feel like “nothing good lives in me...” like the things I want to do that are good never happen, like “evil is right there with me” Romans 7:18-19, 21. Even though we chose the wrong path again and again, God loved us so much that He sent Jesus Christ to rescue us from ourselves. Since death is the result of our sin, Christ chose to die instead of us, even though He had never sinned. He died so we could be seen by God to be righteous- not sin-filled. 

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 

Rom 3:22-24

Three days after He died, Jesus Christ miraculously rose from the dead! We can live for Him, knowing that our sins are forgiven.

You can talk to Jesus like you would to a friend. Jesus, Thank you for rescuing me from myself. I believe you died instead of me so that I could be righteous in God’s eyes. Please help me follow You.

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