Trying Our Best?

The death of Margaret Thatcher last month brought to an end the life of one of the defining figures of the last few decades.  Love her or loathe her, and there were few who didn’t have an opinion at one end of the spectrum or the other, her place in British history is undoubted.

In the newspapers in the days immediately following her death there were many personal stories about people’s dealings with her.  One of them particularly captured my attention, and not just mine.  The Bishop of London referred to the same story in his funeral address.

It concerned a letter from the nine-year-old son of a vicar which the Prime Minister had received.  It said; “Last night, when we were saying prayers, my Daddy said everyone has done wrong things except Jesus.  I said I don’t think you have done bad things because you are the Prime Minister.  Am I right or is my Daddy?”

Much to the family’s delight, Mrs. Thatcher sent a handwritten reply.  In it she wrote; “However good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle and wise as Jesus.  There will be times when we say or do something we wish we hadn’t done and we shall be sorry and try not to do it again.  We do our best, but our best is not as good as his daily life … As Prime Minister, I try very hard to do things right and because Jesus gave us a perfect example I try even harder. But your father is right in saying that we can never be as perfect as He was.”

I wonder what you make of that reply.  It has much that we would agree with.  It is hard to think of our current batch of leading politicians being quite so ‘politically incorrect’ as to praise Christ and acknowledge the perfection of his life.  All that the late Baroness said about Him is true; although I am sure we would want to say much more, because the Bible does.  He was not only perfect man, but God incarnate, the only Saviour and mediator between man and God.  There is no other way to God, eternal life and heaven, no other way to avoid eternal separation from God in hell itself, than through Jesus.

It is, perhaps, in our response to the perfection of Jesus that we must differ from Mrs. Thatcher.  Her response was to use Him as an example and “try even harder”.  Although 1 Peter 2, amongst other passages reminds us that He is an example, the whole of the New Testament, indeed of the Bible, proclaims that however hard we try, we can never achieve a standard that is acceptable to God, and that could earn us His favour.  He demands perfection of life in word, though and action, because He is perfectly holy.

That is why the Lord Jesus came.  He didn’t come just to be an example that if we follow would enable us to be saved.  He came into this world precisely because we can never save ourselves.  He came to bring salvation through his death in our place on the cross.  By trusting in Him we can have salvation and eternal life as a gift from this holy God.  Are you still trying hard … or are you trusting Christ?