Mon Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

I want to ask a question. Have you ever wondered why there were two crosses next to Jesus? Why weren't there six or ten? Have you ever wondered why Jesus was in the center? Why wasn't He on the far right or the far left? I believe it was God’s way of illustrating to all of us in this room that just like those two criminals you have a choice. Those two men had so much in common. They committed the same crime, were convicted by the same court, condemned by the same death, castigated by the same crowd and both of them were the same distance from Jesus. They each had the same opportunity to make the same choice.

There are a lot of things in life that we don’t get to choose. You didn't choose your gender, your family, your race, or where you were born. You didn't choose your IQ or your athletic ability. Basically, when it came to your life on earth you weren't given a voice or a vote, but when it comes to your eternal destiny you do.

You will have failure in your life, but you can choose not to be a failure with your life. This criminal made a lot of bad choices in his life, but he is not spending eternity reaping the fruit of those bad choices. He is enjoying the fruit of the one good choice that he made. In the end, if you make the best choice, which is trusting Jesus, He can wipe out all the bad ones. If you are sitting here today saying, “I wish I could make up for all the failures in my life” you can. One good decision for Jesus can cancel out every other bad one you've ever made.

What is it going to be? Before death,these two criminals were separated by about 12 feet. After death, they were separated by eternity. What separated them was not the degree of their wickedness and not the magnitude of their failure, but what separated them was simply this – one rejected Jesus and one received Jesus. Every one of us is going to die just like one of those two thieves. We will either die with a clenched fist in the face of God or an open hand to the heart of God.

You have a lot of advantages that that thief didn't have. You live in a gospel-saturated country. You have access to the Word of God. You know the the death of Jesus on the cross, and the empty tomb of the resurrection tells all of us that you may live with failure, but you don’t have to die with failure, because the Jesus that died between two criminals now sits on a throne in heaven next to the other one.