Exams!

Image taken from: http://blogs.bmj.com

It’s that time of year again. The rows of desks are set out. The students are sat all facing the front. The exam papers are given out and the exam begins. In the next 60, 90, or 120 minutes each student is expected to answer to the set number of questions in the hope that they can secure enough marks to pass and gain the grade they need. The pressure is on! How well have they revised and prepared with practice papers? Have they covered the right areas? Have the right questions come up on the paper? When the exam is over there is the long wait before, sometime in July/August, the results are out and you know then whether you have passed or not, got the grade/degree you wanted or not.

There will be some people who will walk away from this exam period in the hope that it is the last they will ever need to do. Yet in life we are still working ‘under exam conditions’. We will be assessed on our performance in the workplace. It may be that we will be assessed in the doctor’s surgery, or the hospital ward, so that an expert can tell us what is wrong. The reality is that we cannot escape exams!

 
The sobering thing is that God also does an assessment of our life. Paul, writing to Romans, put the ‘marks’ that God gives us in this way:

Criteria	Mark
Personal righteousness or good character	0
Our comparison with others	0
Understanding	0
Seeking after God	0
Obedience to God’s law	0
Good deeds or works	0

The overall mark is zero. We have all failed – ‘come short of the glory of God’. We have missed the mark.

Some might think that we can appeal. We can ask for a reassessment. We can take the exam again and try and do better. Yet, we need to realize, God’s assessment is perfect and accurate and final! There is no appeal. We cannot do better than we already have. Our position cannot be changed by our highest efforts.

What we need to do is confess to God that we have failed. If we give up any of our own efforts, and cast ourselves upon the mercy of God we can be saved from the consequences of our failure. God has provided a Saviour – the Lord Jesus Christ. Of His Son, God was able to say, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’. Yet God’s perfect Son, One who did not and could not fail, died upon a Roman cross to pay the penalty of our failure and sin. He can be our Saviour. First, we have to confess our failure. Second, we have to ask Him to be our Saviour by faith – trust Him! That is the only way that we can ‘pass’, because then we are seen as ‘in Christ’, safe and secure!