Everyone wants to believe that there is a large gray zone between good and bad. You know, pretty good and pretty bad. When someone dies who is not a believer in Jesus you will hear all about those pretty good things that were done in that person’s life. It might be easier to navigate through some of the difficulties in life that way, but this viewpoint has no reality Biblically. God only sees two groups: saved/unsaved; righteous by Jesus’ blood/ unrighteous, His friends/ His enemies. No middle ground. Jesus clearly presents only two roads to eternity in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” From the lips of Jesus, only two options exist.

We read in 2 Kings 3:1-3, “Now Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and mother; for he put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin; he did not depart from them.” King Jehoram was pretty good in comparison to his father, Ahab. But there is no middle ground.

He is still declared evil in God’s sight. When people consider the 10 commandments, everyone likes to overlook the first commandment which is, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:2-3). Jesus lists this as the most important commandment in Matthew 22:37-38, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.”

So, since this is the most important commandment why do we place so little weight on it? Why do we persist on describing all of those people in our lives who have either openly rejected Christ or simply don’t give Him a second thought as pretty good because of how they treat their family, etc. Knowing this, we should stop our complacency and reach out to a world full of our friends, family, co-workers, etc. who don’t know Christ as their personal Savior. We don’t have to have all the answers, just a willing heart, out testimony, and most importantly the gospel message. Don’t fear not having a response. When Elisha was approached by the three kings in 2 Kings 3:14-19, he doesn’t give a knee jerk response, but instead does what we should do, he waited for the Lord to direct him. If we don’t know an answer we can go to the Scriptures, go to our pastor, go to a more mature Christian, and in the meantime simply state that you don’t know but you will get back to them. Until we see the world as He does: two groups, we will continue along our complacent path.