Listen to Devotion

[Jesus said] “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“You must be this tall to go on this ride.” Those were terrible and frustrating words for a young boy to read, especially if his friends and/or cousins were tall enough to get on the roller coaster. It generally did not matter how tall I was. I can remember one summer being just an inch shy of the line, and the ride operator would not make an exception. I would have to wait until I measured up.

Getting into heaven is like that. In fact, it is even worse. Jesus himself said that to enter heaven, we would have to be more righteous than the Pharisees of his day. To help understand his point, realize that the Pharisees had added hundreds of their own commands to be obeyed on top of the commands that God gave, and they shunned anyone who couldn’t measure up to their rules. It is disheartening, then, to hear Jesus say that not even those self-righteous Pharisees could measure up. Truthfully, no one can. God demands perfection as the entrance requirement for heaven, and nobody can measure up to that.

Jesus doesn’t say this because he wants to keep you out of heaven. Rather, he wants you to realize that there is only one way to gain entrance into heaven, and it isn’t through our own efforts. He wants us to see that the only way to heaven is through him. Jesus is the only one who measured up to God’s standard of perfection. He lived a perfect life in our place and achieved righteousness on our behalf. He died in our place on the cross to earn salvation for us. Through faith in Jesus, the standard has been met. He now gives us the ticket to heaven. We don’t need to worry about whether we measure up, because he measured up for us.

Dear Jesus, thank you for meeting the standard of perfection for me. Grant me confidence that heaven is open to me because of all you did for me. Amen.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.