Recently, my wife and I had dinner and Starbucks afterward with some good friends, Steve and Kathy. We had not seen them in ages. We started to talk about spiritual things and the state of the nation. Kathy said, “Well, God is good and we are not.” That stuck with me. It is something certainly worth pondering.“God Is Good-We Are Not,” sounds like a great bumper sticker doesn’t it? But, it is also a very short and accurate summary of the Gospel. Because God is good and loves us, he sent His Son to die in our place (John 3:16). Who do you know who would give their son for you? As for me, no one comes to mind.

The second half of the equation is that we are not good. We are fallen in Scriptural terms. We miss the mark. We have a great propensity to do the wrong thing.

The goodness and innocence that was within Adam and Eve at creation was lost in the Garden. Their original state didn’t last long. They chose to not believe God and believe a lie instead. What Adam and Eve did was really bad, evil, and we still suffer from the after effects of their rebellion and disobedience. We are fallen creatures.

Bruce Narramore, a Christian psychologist, said it this way: We are very special, deeply fallen, and greatly loved. We are special because God Himself chose to create us. Each of us is known by him and purposefully created by Him in His image. We are fallen because of what Adam and Eve did. We inherited their sinful nature. And, last but not least, we are greatly loved. In spite of ourselves, He still loves us. That’s pretty incredible isn’t it? If you were God would you love you?

In our nation today, God has to take a back seat to almost everything else in our lives. He is no longer allowed in our schools. He is not allowed on government owned property. People have been arrested for praying in front of the White House and told not to pray in other public places.

There is nothing new under the sun and America is following the same well-trodden path of previous empires that now lay in dust and rubble. God is no longer welcome here except in the churches it seems. The government doesn’t get too upset with God unless He gets out of the churches and tries to appear in the public square. He simply is not welcome here any more.

I remember when I was growing up in the 1950s God was welcome almost everywhere. He would even be honored on the national news. We read the Bible and prayed in the schools. Right and wrong was much more clear and obvious then.

During Christmas time the department stores displayed the baby Jesus in his manger and probably most if not all courthouses had a Christmas display. I don’t think there were any Holiday trees for sale, only Christmas trees. It was Christmas you know and not winter break. God help us.

Because we are fallen and think we can make it without God as a nation we will soon suffer the full folly of our choices if we don’t repent. In spite of this rejection, not to mention the rejection that destined Jesus for the cross, God still loves us. He loves you.

We will all do well to remember that God is good and we are not. The great news is that God is willing to give you His righteousness and fully justify you. His Word says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him“. ( 2 Cor. 5:21 NASB).