Regardless of the level or variation of our belief, we are probably all guilty of assuming that God is keeping score. After all, we have all experienced a lifetime of moral judgements. We have all heard the stories of human responses to wrong-doings or good deeds.

It is only logical to assume the God operates by the same standards.

After all, the Bible is full of tales of human conflicts, including stories of the bad guys winning (at least temporarily) and the good guys suffering setbacks. Sometimes the good guys are unjustly imprisoned or harmed. Sometimes angels show up to save the day.

There are plenty of moments that could leave us in suspense. There is an intricate web of events that lead up to the big climax. There is a lot of back-and-forth, a lot of lessons learned, but we know how it all ends.

Or do we?

The problem is we are handicapped by our human experience. We are handicapped by our church experience. Over and over, we are drilled with the message that we need to confess our transgressions. We need to ask forgivness.

It sure seems like God is keeping score, and how we rank will determine our eternal fate.

What gets lost in the process is the basics of Christianity.

Once we strip away all the trappings of “religion” that mankind has adorned the foundation of Christianity with, we may discover the fundamental truth that has gotten lost in the clutter of human history.

Perhaps God doesn’t count the number or magnitude of sins as much as He merely recognizes the “yes” or “no” of our sinful nature. And since none of us can claim the status of “no,” the need for forgiveness is pretty obvious.

The ultimate error of our ways is falling back into the belief that the degree of our sin determines the degree of our fate. Perhaps we need to only recognize that God is “love,” and anything we do or think that is contrary to love puts us firmly on the wrong side of the ledger.

Perhaps – just perhaps – it is that simple.