PANTS GO ON ONE LEG AT A TIME

Every one's pants go on the same way.  We have heard that phrase to the yawnth degree.  We've heard it.  We tend not to believe its implications; but we HAVE HEARD IT.

The implication is that we are all just alike.  For the longest time...maybe three decades...I didn't believe it.  Now I do.  When we do, a new world opens.

I found I was approaching life in the wrong order.  I was seeing the success of others and hesitating to assert myself because I was not comparable to their skills and talents.  What I didn't realize is that every top-level individual, regardless of expertise, is the very same as me; deeply sinful.  We all put on our pants one leg at a time and there is no exception among our peers.

God is clear when He says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  One of our mistakes is to take "short" as being "pretty close" but not close enough.  Short means we didn't cut it.  Personal self-provision of working our way to salvation is not within any one's range.  No one.

Rebecca Pippert points out that, The good news is that while life is difficult and sin is ever-present reality, God offers hope and healing for all who need it.  The bad news is that we all need it!  The only way we differ is that some of us realize our need, and some do not.

Within every congregation there is a sin problem.  It isn't that someone(s) is committing sin that is the obvious problem.  It is worse.  When we deny our sinfulness and confess we have none, I can't really say this is worse....but it surely isn't good.

Enter Jesus.  As long as we believe we are managing our personal sin-points, we deceive ourselves by thinking we have no need of him.  We just need to suck it up and do better.  When we are in over our heads---and we all are---Jesus is crowned King of Life.  He is the only one who conquered the very place where we were sinking eternally.

Jesus isn't a name that closes out a prayer.  He is the Rescuer of all of us....all of us who are too sinful to save ourselves.

Our pants go on one leg at a time.  No exceptions.  We are all the same.  The rising stars and the depressed, the CEOs and the prisoners, the world travelers and the homeless; all of us have the same disease...sin.

Jesus is the only Physician who can render us whole and worthy in the sight of God.