Andrew Ramsey wrote the following line about Brendon McCullum’s 3-ball duck in the World Cup Final 2015 versus Australia in Melbourne before 90,000 plus people: “If two successive air swings were not sufficient to alert McCullum to the peril that Starc posed, the third ensured the visiting captain’s World Cup Final batting memories will be brief, bitter and bereft of any contact between bat and ball.” Later in the New Zealand innings, two other batsmen, Corey Anderson (one time record holder for the fastest ODI hundred) and Luke Ronchi (whose ODI highest score is 170 runs) also recorded ducks. Three of the cleanest ball-strikers in the Kiwi line-up scored ducks in their biggest ever ODI game.
Ducks. Zeroes. These words reminds me of our score when we compare it with the score of God’s score when it comes to purity: it is nought. We have ALL sinned and fallen short of His glory, the Bible records (Rom. 3:23). In other words: we have a duck across our name when it comes to salvation. We can’t make it heaven with our merit. We cannot save ourselves through our effort. We cannot pull ourselves up with our own boot laces, can we? Our good morals are like filthy rags (like menstrual cloth) before God, Isaiah wrote. All our “g-o-o-d” minus “G-O-D” is just a 0 – a zero (as someone said). But there is only one who coverts that duck into a hundred. That’s Jesus, the God in flesh, the only one who never ever sinned, the one Mediator between God and Man. All one needs to be saved is to put one’s trust in this Jesus, who died for us on the Cross and arose, with a repentant heart (Luke 13:5; Rom. 10:9). Paul writes, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith…” (Eph 2:8). Would you come to Jesus to accept this free gift of salvation? Would you do it now?
(Dr. Duke Jeyaraj is an engineer turned Doctor of Ministry graduate. Duke is the founder of Grabbing the Google Generation from Gehenna Mission, the G4 Mission, a inter-church, inter-organizational ministry to present-day people. Duke and his wife, Evangelin work for this ministry fulltime. This ministry is funded by those who are blessed by reading Duke’s writings and hearing his messages – all Indians. Find out more by liking www.facebook.com/googleduke).
