Appendix A Elite Execution

Appendix A

If you are still reading these articles, let me share one last pearl, one last truth: You are not a good person. The heart is desperately wicked. I know this because I am just like you. We are going to Hell. And we deserve it. We are sinners. We need to be forgiven. When we die and stand before God, He might ask you and me, “Why should I let you into Heaven?” How will you answer that question?

According to the calendar you use every day, the history of the world points back to a historic figure born 2,000 years ago: Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

As C. S. Lewis put it in his book Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus]: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) 51-52.

Liar. Lunatic. Lord. In the Bible, Jesus Christ claims to be the only way to God, the only way to Heaven. His death on the cross was payment for your sins to a just judge who created a way for you to find mercy. 

I say these things as a friend. 

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The difference between the Christian faith and all other religions is Jesus. All other religions depend upon you to measure up or complete tasks, to be a good person, and to basically save yourself. Well, you can’t. You don’t want your eternity to depend upon you and your ability to meet a standard. That is a recipe for failure. And God knows that. And deep down in your most honest place, you know that. You want a sovereign God whose will cannot be thwarted, whose knowledge cannot be surpassed—a God who chose you and wrote your name in the book of life before the beginning of the world and a God who providentially directs history to fulfill His prophecies and points the world toward His son. A God who can’t lose you, who is just and loving, who is able to preserve His word in His attempt to reveal Himself and have a relationship with you … You know you can’t save yourself.

If you had cancer and I had the cure, I would give it to you. Jesus is the cure for the sin that is killing you, sin that is stealing your joy, sin that is robbing your family of peace, and sin that has you captive to temptations and/or addictions. Only Jesus can lift the constant guilty feeling that stands on your chest and weighs heavily on your mind. If your answer to God’s question I posed earlier at the entrance to Heaven is anything other than that you accepted His son’s sacrifice as payment for your sins, then according the Bible you won’t get in. 

We acknowledged that salespeople are genuinely motivated by money and recognition. At its essence it’s a drive we have to fill, a need to be valuable. Everyone has it. For salespeople it is simply more transparently expressed in these two elements. But you can’t fulfill the desire to be valuable with material goods or accolades. The desire doesn’t have its origin here on Earth; He put it in there, and the only thing that will fulfill the need for affirmation you feel is to hear your Heavenly Father say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” 

The Bible points to rewards that will be stored up in Heaven “where moth and rust cannot destroy” (Matthew 6:20), inflation cannot degrade, fashion trends cannot antiquate, and money cannot measure. The Bible makes it clear that we are sinners and unacceptable to God, our Creator. We feel it keenly, and we want to fix it. Christ has offered himself as a substitute, and through his act of selflessness on the cross, he has ensured that justice is served and enabled us to be reconciled to our Heavenly Father—to become accepted as adopted sons and daughters. If you know anything about orphaned children, you have seen a powerful example of the need to know your father. So many adopted children have an uncontrollable urge to find

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their birth parents and connect to their real family. I don’t believe that is a coincidence; I think it is woven into the fabric of our souls. The God of Heaven has chosen to reveal Himself as a father. He is a good father. He wants to meet your need for a savior.

Florence Littauer claims that, by our choleric natures, we “have the answers and know what to do” . I hope that means you are one of those people who can recognize the truth when you see it. You know what to do.