No Asterisk

Those of you who are sports fans have already heard the news. The 2017 Houston Astros cheated. Their only World Series title was gained by dishonest means. The commissioner of baseball has decided not to void the Astros’ win, but there will always be an asterisk by their name in the list of champions (at least in people’s minds). The Astros did not earn it fairly by their own skill. They are allowed to keep their World Series rings, but deep down they all know that they do not deserve them.

What a shame.

My name is in the book of life. I do not deserve to have it there; but it is there. There is no asterisk by my name, just a cross.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV) “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Ephesians 2:13 (ESV) “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Colossians 2:11-14 (ESV) “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”