God Gets an A

When I was in college, one of my professors told us about a former student. Along with his classmates, the student was given an exam that he was unprepared to take. As he scanned the questions, it became clear that he knew only a handful of correct answers. Following each of the many questions he didn’t have answers for, he wrote the words, “I don’t know but God does; I don’t know but God does.”

My professor said that beside most of the questions on the test, the student had written those words, “I don’t know but God does.” When my professor returned the graded test to the student, he had written in red at the top of the test: “God gets an A, you get an F.”

Is there a chance God knows more than we do? Absolutely! We’ve all failed. God gets an A, we get an F. The Bible reminds us that we’ve all sinned and fall short of God’s glory. And when we consider that a perfect and holy God knows everything about us, that failure becomes even more accentuated.

God is perfectly loving, perfectly kind, perfectly just, perfectly powerful, perfectly holy, perfectly wise, perfectly present. His character is flawless. His purposes are unstoppable. On the other hand, you and I are none of that. We fall short in every way. We’re all sinful.

Hundreds of years before God-in-the-flesh arrived on earth, Isaiah painted a picture of hope when he said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2a). The prophet predicted the arrival of Jesus the Messiah centuries before His birth. Jesus is a great light. Have you seen that great light? Have you embraced His forgiveness. Are you experiencing a brand-new life? Is Jesus personal and real to you or along with Santa Claus is He just the figurine of a cultural holiday?

This great love that Jesus has for humanity becomes even more obvious when we read, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Jesus would bear the sins of the entire world—including yours and mine—and die in our place. Once we believe that, forgiveness and new life are ours.

Jesus begins his life on earth, laid in a crudely fashioned feeding trough, and concludes his life on earth, nailed to a crudely fashioned cross. Jesus’ mission was only beginning that first Christmas. He who knew no sin would take on the sin of the world so we could have a chance at life, real life. The cross of Christ and His resurrection on Easter morning would become the second chapter in the story of our redemption.

No doubt, you should keep doing what you’re doing if you’re already following Jesus and bringing glory to Him. But perhaps it’s time for you to start over. You can’t undo what’s been done but you can get a new start. God loves new starts. He’s in full support of do-overs. And He can turn our resolutions into a revolution of change, for good. Like that student unprepared for that test, we need help. All of us do. And God loves to help us.