{"id":313,"date":"2020-12-09T19:26:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T19:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/?p=313"},"modified":"2020-12-09T23:03:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T23:03:34","slug":"naughty-names-on-the-nice-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/?p=313","title":{"rendered":"Naughty Names on the Nice List"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We all know the song, \u201cHe\u2019s making a list,\nhe\u2019s checking it twice, he\u2019s gonna find out who\u2019s naughty or nice, Santa Clause\nis coming to town!\u201d Making Santa\u2019s list is one thing, but what about God\u2019s list?\nLet\u2019s change the lyrics, \u201cHe\u2019s making a list, He paid a great price, He can\ntransform the naughty to nice, Jesus Christ is coming again!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hebrews 11, also known as God\u2019s Hall of Fame,\nprovides a nice list of 16 names (14 heroes and 2 heroines of faith). If you carefully study the\nnames, you wonder how some of them made it on the nice list. There\u2019s a simple\nanswer\u2014faith and grace! Jesus told the 70 disciples, \u201cRejoice, because your\nnames are written in heaven\u201d<\/em> (Lk. 10:20). If you are born again and your\nname is written in the Lamb\u2019s Book of Life, then you have been put on the nice\nlist too. It doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re perfect or always act nicely. It means you\u2019re saved,\ndelivered, forgiven, redeemed, and a new creature in Christ who is striving to\nplease God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we\u2019re honest, we all belong on the naughty list \u201cFor all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God\u201d<\/em> (Rom. 3:23, NKJV). \u201cAs it is written, \u2018There is none righteous, no, not one . . . there is none who does good, no, not one\u2019\u201d<\/em> (Rom. 3:10, 12). Even the great Apostle Paul admitted, \u201cFor I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells\u201d<\/em> (Rom. 7:18). Our best attempts at being righteous are as filthy rags. The only good in us is JESUS! The truth is none of us deserve heaven. \u201cThe wages of sin is death\u201d<\/em> and that\u2019s what we deserve\u2014death, hell, and eternal separation from God. So, how in the world did we end up on the nice list? Faith and grace! \u201cFor by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast\u201d<\/em> (Eph. 2:8-9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You be the jury as we examine the Hebrews 11 list. Are they naughty or nice? Notice how many of them have chinks in their armor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Abel:<\/strong> He offered a lamb as a blood sacrifice. God testified of his gifts and accepted his offering, but He rejected Cain\u2019s crops. Cain represents a religion of works while Abel points to a religion of grace. 
    <\/li>
  2. Enoch: <\/strong>He pleased God so much that he was translated to heaven without facing the fearsome foe of death. 
    <\/li>
  3. Noah: <\/strong>He found favor with God and built an ark to save his family and humanity. Then, his naughty side manifested when he got drunk and laid in his tent naked. In a drunken stupor, he cursed his own grandson, Canaan (Ham\u2019s son), whose offspring became enemies of Israel.
    <\/li>
  4. Abraham: <\/strong>The \u201cFather of the Faith\u201d forsook his homeland and family to follow God and sired a son at 100 years of age. However, he repeatedly lied about Sarah being his wife.
    <\/li>
  5. Sarah:<\/strong> This <\/strong>mother of nations doubted when an angel told her she would have a son. She laughed and then denied it. Plus, she got ahead of God and tried to help Him by having a son (Ishmael) with a surrogate mother (Hagar).
    <\/li>
  6. Isaac: <\/strong>This Patriarch also lied about his wife, Rebekah, claiming she was his sister. Like father, like son\u2014lying really ran in this family.
    <\/li>
  7. Jacob: <\/strong>This tricky twin swindled his brother, Esau, out of his birthright and lied to his blind, dying father, Isaac. Then, he had an encounter with God who changed his name and nature. Jacob, the deceiver, became Israel\u2014a prince of God.
    <\/li>
  8. Joseph: <\/strong>This slave saved the world after God took him from pit to pinnacle. A man of high character, his only flaw was bragging to his brothers about his dreams which made them resent him.
    <\/li>
  9. Moses: <\/strong>One of the greatest leaders and prophets in history had murder on his rap sheet. Plus, he had anger issues. He literally broke the Ten Commandments in a fit of rage and struck the rock with his staff instead of speaking to it, costing him a trip to Canaan land.  <\/strong>
    <\/li>
  10. Rahab: <\/strong>Her life was a moral train wreck. She belonged on the naughty list for sure, but God turned this harlot into a heroine of faith and moved her to the nice list. She hid the spies and heeded their warning (faith without works is dead). She later married one of them (Salmon) and they had a son named Boaz. His son, Obed, had a son, Jesse, whose son was David. In a remarkable miracle of grace, Rahab became the great, great grandmother of King David and an ancestor of Christ (Mt. 1:5-6).
    <\/li>
  11. Gideon: <\/strong>God\u2019s reluctant general defeated the massive Midianite army with just 300 men. They were vastly outnumbered, but if God be for you, who can be against you? Gideon overcame fear and insecurity, and God turned this wimp into a mighty warrior.
    <\/li>
  12. Barak: <\/strong>This captain, recruited by Deborah, raised a militia of 10,000 men to defeat Jabin, a Canaanite king who oppressed Israel (Jgs. 4).  <\/strong>
    <\/li>
  13. Samson: <\/strong>This hippie judge had serious anger management problems. He slept with a harlot, was seduced by Delilah, and broke His covenant with God. In prison, he repented, and God moved on him one last time and used him to deliver Israel from the Philistines.
    <\/li>
  14. Jephthah: <\/strong>God used this son of a harlot to deliver Israel from the Ammonites (Jgs. 11). <\/strong>
    <\/li>
  15. David: <\/strong>This anointed shepherd, psalmist, prophet, and king, committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband, Uriah the Hittite, murdered.  
    <\/li>
  16. Samuel: <\/strong>This faithful judge, priest, and prophet anointed the first two kings of Israel.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Over half\nof the people on the list did some naughty things that could have disqualified\nthem. What does that tell us? It doesn\u2019t justify any bad behavior, but God\u2019s\ngrace is bigger than our failures. So, repent and believe and let grace rewrite\nyour story. Maybe you\u2019ve been naughty too, but God can still put you on His\nnice list!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We all know the song, \u201cHe\u2019s making a list, he\u2019s checking it twice, he\u2019s gonna find out who\u2019s naughty or nice, Santa Clause is coming to town!\u201d Making Santa\u2019s list is one thing, but what about God\u2019s list? Let\u2019s change the lyrics, \u201cHe\u2019s making a list, He paid a great price, He can transform the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodspringsfgc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}