“The gulf between God and us is still wider than we have so far considered.
It is the chasm that yawns between us as rebellious creatures and God our righteous judge.
It is not only that we lack the mental equipment to conceive him,
but we lack the moral integrity to approach him.”(John Stott, Focusing on Christ)

Let me put those words into a picture. Picture the Grand Canyon. Now imagine all of humanity on one side and God on the other. If you lined up every human being who has ever lived along the rim of that pit, and if they had to jump to the other side, what would happen?

Some would do better than others, of course. An Olympic long jumper would make it farther than someone on crutches, and the rest of us would fall, literally, in the middle, but all will fail to reach the other side by about a mile.

It’s the same with our inherent goodness. Some folks are better than others but we all “fall short of the glory of God.” We simply do not have the moral integrity to reach God by our own efforts. Our only hope is if God bridges the chasm from His side.

In other words, we need help. We need a bridge. The good news is that this is what God has done in Jesus. Our sin created a great chasm, a deep divide between us and God. God, however, has built a bridge by means of the cross that allows us, in the words of Hebrews, to draw near to Him.

See you on Sunday!