Bad Ideas

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Jerry Godsey’s list of all time bad ideas…

~Cottage cheese. Anything that looks like that or tastes like that can’t be good.

~Polyester leisure suits. If we had caught fire wearing those they wouldn’t have been able to put us out!

~Mullets.

~Polka music. ~Bagpipes.

~Rap music.

~Slim Whitman, the yodeling cowboy.

~France. Yes, the whole country. Just a bad idea. I can sum up my point this way: stinky cheese, women who don’t shave their armpits and Jerry Lewis is a god there. I think you see my point.

~Shirts that show off your belly button. Okay, not on everyone, but certainly on most people. Especially me!

~Those purple pants I wore in junior high. Yes, I wore them, and yes, they were cool.

~The dirt clod fights my brothers and I used to have. Very bad idea, very unsafe, and a heck of a lot of fun!

~My hair throughout the 70’s.

~ “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Charles H. Duell, U.S. Patent Office director, 1899.

~ “Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.” Grover Cleveland, 1905.

~ “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, c. 1895.

~ “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty.” The Michigan banker who advised Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the new motor car company.

~ “Gone with the Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his face and not me.” Gary Cooper

You know what all these mistakes have in common? We still remember them. We read the quotes from famous men who said stupid things, and we remember.

Bigger than all these mistakes, though, is not accepting Christ’s offer of forgiveness. Jesus did all the heavy lifting and accomplished for us what we could not do for ourselves. He forgave us our sins, our mistakes.

Someone once said that failure is not fatal. That is not necessarily so. Failing to accept Christ’s forgiveness is indeed fatal. It will keep you out of heaven, and keep you from all the happiness and peace that God has for you.

Christ sees all of our mistakes, but still is able to forgive us. Not only does He forgive us, He also forgets about our sins. Once Christ forgives you, He doesn’t hold it to your account any longer.

Steve Brown tells the story of a nun who once confessed to her bishop that Christ had revealed himself to her in person. The bishop was surprised, but he knew this nun and the deep walk she had with the Lord. So he said to her, “Look, the next time he reveals himself to you in person, ask him about the sins of the archbishop, because I’d like to know some of the bad things that he’s been doing.”

Because he was her confessor, the nun said that she would act in obedience and do exactly that. A number of weeks later she came back. The bishop said, “Well, did he reveal himself to you?”

She said, “Yes.”

The bishop said, “What did he say?”

The nun replied, “He said, ‘I don’t remember.’”

Isn’t that great? He doesn’t remember our mistakes. He only remembers forgiving us.

Burying my mistakes in Christ’s forgiveness… Jerry