Cardboard Rulers

My children went to birthday parties when they were little.
They would always come home with a party bag.
Inside were things like candy, pencils, stickers, erasers, and plastic rulers.
The plastic rulers would change pictures as you moved them back and forth.

Sometimes the rulers were made of cardboard.
They made wonderful bookmarks but terrible rulers.
You could always tell when someone was at a birthday party on the weekend.
On Monday morning, cardboard rulers would be on the desks.

We were told not to use those cardboard rules in math class.
Cardboard rulers are not an accurate measuring tool.
We needed a solid standard by which we could measure lines.
We needed a standard of measurement we could trust.

I found myself thinking about cardboard rulers after having lunch with a friend.

Over lunch, friends talk about many things.
When the small talk is out of the way, there is a peeling back of the layers of the heart.
There is an unveiling that happens so that by the end of lunch, friends need more time.
What is important is usually discussed right before the waitress brings the bill.

We talked about quite a lot and solved the problems of the world from our chairs.
We talked about the state of the world and agreed on the complexity of many problems.
However, we discovered that we disagreed on a foundational point.
We did not start at the same place in our thinking.

Differences of opinion can be handled respectfully.
Two people can agree to disagree.
One can debate with intelligence while standing firm in their beliefs.
The important thing is that the belief is respected even when there is disagreement.

I still cannot remember how we even began to venture down the path.
We talked about sin and I remarked that people are not born good.
My friend disagreed and believed that everyone is born good.
She believed that everyone is simply a product of their environment.

Given good choices and opportunities, people will turn out just fine.
Given bad choices and lack of opportunities, people will struggle and turn out wrong.
She knew I did not agree.
My mind raced with all the things I wanted to say to her.

You’re a spiritual person, she said sweetly.
You have to believe that people are basically good.
She knew from my previous statement, that I did not believe that.
I thought later, and well into the night, what I should have said at the moment.

Cardboard Rulers.
The false standard of measurement we use when we say all people are good.
We are using a measuring tool that is arbitrary.
We are using a measuring tool with the wrong standard.

Just like the teacher in math class, we need an absolute standard of measurement.
We need to measure ourselves against the one true standard that is God.
We need to measure ourselves against God’s holiness.
When we measure ourselves against His perfect standard, we do not measure up.

As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:10-18)

My friend believes in original sin.
Yet even believing that, she still feels that a person is born good.
Sometimes we have to take our conclusions to the end to see the logic of what we say.
If a person is born with original sin, then they are not born good.

Any parent can attest that their children do not have to learn how to be bad.
A child does not have to learn how to whine or fight or defy or disobey.
A child has to learn not to do those things.
That is what child rearing is all about.

We parents have a job to do.
The raw material with which we work is the inherent sin nature of our child.
We must train our children in righteousness.
We cannot assume that opportunities and choices will make them good.

We need to be saved from our sinful self.
We need to be made righteous through the Righteous One.
We need to be made righteous through the only One who was born without sin.
Jesus Christ.

If we are honest, we know that even when we do a good thing, it is not purely good.
There is ego involved.
There is a need to be recognized.
There is jealously over recognition that did not happen.

We promise ourselves that we will not get angry or gossip or lie.
We find that our thoughts go places they should not go.
We discover that our tongue can be cruel.
We realize that our motives are not pure.

We are not basically good.
Not by a long shot.
We have a good God, a holy God, whose perfect standard we can never meet.
We can never meet His standards using our cardboard rulers.

We need a perfect plumb line.
We need to see ourselves against His holiness.
We need to see how far we fall short.
We need a perfect standard of righteousness to somehow be applied to us.

That application happened on the cross.
Jesus took our sin upon Himself and gave us His righteousness.
Jesus took away our cardboard rulers.
We can now be measured correctly before the Father.

Our cardboard rulers are gone.
We will still sin.
After the application, God the Father sees His Son, Jesus when He looks at us.
We are accepted when Jesus’ perfect righteousness is applied.

We are not born good.
We are re-born good in Christ.
No more cardboard rulers.
When we come to Jesus in faith and believe, His perfect righteousness is applied to us.

What standard do you use to measure yourself?
Cardboard rulers cannot measure against the holiness of God.
Are you ready to throw your cardboard ruler away?
Come to Jesus; let Him dispose of your cardboard ruler forever.