You need an Atonement by Blood, for you are guilty in the sight of God, there is no hope for you ever coming to God except by Christ's Bloody Sacrifice. You have sinned, you have done those things which you ought not to have done, and you have left undone those things which you ought to have done. There are no secrets with God, He sees everything, everywhere, all the time. Whether your sins are open or secret, many or few, they require the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ. The Gospel comes to deal directly with your sin problem; you cannot get rid of your sins apart from the Blood Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The putting away of the sins of the most moral person who ever lived still requires the Propitiation of the Son of God.
All men have evil hearts and sinful habits. In every sinner there are the black spots of the love for sin, the forgetfulness of God, a dislike to God, and an alienation from God. The only way to get these sinful spots out of the heart requires the divine operations of the Holy Spirit. No man can make his own heart clean in the sight of God. It is clearly impossible for a man to change his evil heart. An honest man or practiced criminal are all in the same boat, it is equally impossible for either of them to make his heart right in the sight of the all-seeing God. The removal of sins from the soul is beyond human power, you need the work of the Spirit. There is no difference, all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Confess and acknowledge that your own righteousness is nothing but dung and filthy rags, and that there is absolutely nothing in you that can merit anything from God.
Realize that God has put His Son in your place, God laid your sins on Jesus, and God smote Jesus with the punishment that you ought to have received. Jesus willingly became your Substitute. Accept what Christ endured for you, and trust to His Blood with all your heart. You must, in fact, change places with Christ - let Jesus stand in your place and be reckoned as the sinner, so you can stand in His place and be looked upon by God as if you are like His Son, absolutely and perfectly righteous without sin, only because of what Jesus has done for you. Jesus puts on our guilty rags, and we put on His innocent robe of Righteousness. True faith forsakes its own righteousness and appropriates to itself the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's grand plan of Salvation.
This is the one way of eternal life - you must first acknowledge yourself to be sinful, to be nothing, and then take Christ Himself to be your All in All. Sense your sinfulness and misery, and by a simple act of faith in Christ's Atoning Blood, receive Christ into yourself by faith to be your Righteousness, and then you can safely face a holy God with all your guilt. This being done, you are accepted in the Beloved. All who believe in Christ are justified from all things they have done, all who trust in Christ have everlasting life, and they shall never perish. Self-righteousness and good deeds, you will have to take all those rags off. It is a fatal and eternal mistake for you trust in anything you have done to help save your soul from the wrath to come. Your abilities, education, culture, religion, works or wealth will count for nothing in the matter of Salvation; they are all empty vanity.
The gate of Salvation is widely open to you now. There is one Medicine for every sinful disease, one Savior for every sinner, one Blood for all iniquities, one Salvation to rescue the guilty, one Righteousness to cover your naked soul. Believe on Jesus and be saved, look to Him and live, trust yourself to Christ now, rest in His Atoning Blood and Justifying Righteousness. You must be justified freely without any human merit, freely by God's Grace, not an act of justice, but an act of Mercy makes sinners just in the sight of God. Human nature ignorantly thinks that every man can and should be his own savior. Boasting will creep in if it can, human nature is prone to boasting. Boasting in self is common sin of the human race. Quit your own works, and give yourself up entirely to Christ.
It is the duty of the needy sinner to ask for grace and mercy at the Savior's hand. *Job 22:21; Isaiah 55:6-7* A good beggar will be rolling in the riches of Christ. The bread of heaven, the water of life, good things and gladness are always available to needy sinners. You gain everything from God only by begging. Poor, destitute soul take to the business of begging. All that I have obtained from Christ came to me by begging. You will sign your own death warrant and dig your own grave if you trust to your own self-righteous efforts. Grace, mercy pardon, heaven, and eternal life are available now at the Throne of Grace.
You may begin begging immediately. A good beggar is one who has nothing left, his clothes are rags, his shoes are worn out, his pockets are empty, his stomach is growling. A lost sinner is in utter destitution. You need no preparation to ask for Mercy, nothing is to be done in order to prepare you for the Mercy of Christ. Attempt not to better yourself. Come to the Cross now in your foulness, loathsomeness, misery and wretchedness. Your unfitness is your fitness. Your inward spiritual poverty fits you for Christ's divine Charity. Your sickness fits you for the Physician. You begin nothing fits you to have Christ as your All in All. Your starvation fits you for the Bread of Life. Take to begging at the feet of Jesus, and you will be rich towards God. Lord Jesus, look on worthless me, listen to my sighs, hear my cries, have mercy on my guilty soul, cleanse me with your Precious Blood.
