Righteous

We Americans generally want to think of ourselves as good people. That, in many respects, is where the trouble begins.

We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.

Years ago when I was a young banker, we used big leather ledgers where all accounts were entered by hand. I remember daydreaming about those ledgers and God's ledgers in heaven. We are told those books will be opened. I imagined my name, David Stuart Briscoe, and God adding up the sum total of my indebtedness against him. I could never cancel the overwhelming indebtedness. In my mind's eye, I saw God take his pen and transfer the sum total of my indebtedness to the account of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the account of the Lord Jesus, he wrote, "Transferred from the account of David Stuart Briscoe."

I thought God was finished. But then I saw him do something incredible. He added up the total righteousness of Christ and against it wrote these words, "Transferred to the account of David Stuart Briscoe." That's love.

It is a grand thing to see a man dying full of life. God makes his dying people to be like the sun, which never seems so large as when it sets.