If you have been
working to be saved then you don’t know Christ. You might say, “What about all
the good I’ve done?” It is but filthy rags! A saint is one who has been
separated unto God; someone who has been separated to be like Jesus. Take your
eyes off of yourself and place them on Christ. Take the consciousness off of
yourself and place it on God.
The world
has their consciousness on themselves. They are always concerned about what they
can do, what they look like. They think, “What do people think about me?” Instead
the consciousness must remain on Jesus if you are going to glorify God.
Because of the grace of God, we are
allowed to live in eternity with Christ. Romans
9:31-32 says:
. . . but Israel, who
pursued a law of righteousness, has
not attained it. Why
not? Because they pursued it not
by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled
over the “stumbling stone.”
Israel had
rejected Christ because they wanted to pursue God through their works, not by faith.
America does the same thing. Americans believe they are alright before God.
They say that they have not killed or raped anyone; therefore, they are worthy
to go to heaven. Their works are “righteous!” America sends money and aid
around the world. We help people. We are righteous. However, God says that it
is not our works that allow us to enter into heaven; it is his grace through
his Son, Jesus.
Is your life
perfect? Of course not! You know that you make mistakes. We cannot hope to live
up to the standards of a Holy God. God is so perfect, our standards cannot hope
to measure up to him. Therefore, we must have a mediator so we can enter into
his presence; that mediator is Jesus.
Abraham was
declared righteous because of his faith in God. Noah built the ark by faith.
Moses left Egypt by faith; everyone who is declared righteous in the Bible
acted by faith in God. If not, we are just like all of the other religions that
try to work their way into heaven. We cannot give anything to God that he does not
have already. All we can give to him is our love.
The Old
Testament prophets did not get to see the promises of God in their lifetime.
Nevertheless, through the faithfulness of God the promises were fulfilled. The
promises were fulfilled by the future grace of God; the grace we can trust in
because God said he would give it to us.
As
we are giving our love to God, we are not paying a debt; we are simply giving
our love out of our heart. It is not because of gratitude. It is because we are
looking forward to his grace, trusting in what God has told us.
Because of
God’s grace you will want to work. It is not by your work that you are saved,
it is by the promised grace of God.
If your
employer said to you, “If you will do this job I will pay you,” would you not
do the work? Of course you would. People work because of promises every day. As
you work, you begin to trust your employer to continue to pay you; therefore
you continue to do the work. What you do comes from a trust relationship you
have with your employer. How much more a loving Father who has never let anyone
down since before time began. God’s promises are real and can be trusted.
Perhaps at
this juncture it might be beneficial to point out that man measures God’s
promises in the wrong way. Common man might believe God has let him or her down
because of some crisis he or she has faced. However, on every occasion, one has
to be honest about the circumstances involved with the crisis. On every
occasion I believe you will discover that the crisis was man-made. In fact,
every crisis stems back to the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. It is the sin
of man that allowed sin to enter into the world to begin with. Therefore, it
can actually be said that your crisis was created by man.
If you are
not willing to agree with the summation of the Fall of Man, then let’s bring
your crisis closer to home. People of twenty-first century America are not
willing to take responsibility for their actions. It is easier to blame someone
else and, many times, that someone is God.
One day I
had a woman in my office. After telling her about Christ, I invited her to
accept Jesus as her Lord and Savior. She declined. As I inquired of her further
she said that she was mad at God. It seems that some years earlier she had been
in a car accident which took the life of her boyfriend and put her in the
hospital for an extended period of time. As I asked her to explain further she
said they were going 90 mph and hit something. I asked her if she tried to get
out of the car or asked her boyfriend to slow down. She said no, she was having
fun. I then told her that it was not God’s fault that she had the accident; it
was her boyfriend’s fault. One might even go so far as to say that it was her
fault for not trying to stop his reckless driving.
If one
begins to look at the failures of one’s life, one will most likely have to
proclaim that it is not God’s fault, it is their own. God did not make the
failed choices he is blamed for.
Conversely,
one must proclaim the successes to be from God’s laws. God’s law says that if
one works, he will reap a harvest; the just and the unjust. If one does not
work, one will not succeed to the glory of God.
Genesis 3:19
says that man will work by the sweat of his brow. There will be thorns and
thistles that will impair reaping, but God gives us the promise that if we will
clear the thorns and thistles, he will give us a crop. He will give us a
bounty.
If you sow
sparingly, you will reap sparingly, but if you sow generously you will reap
generously (2 Corinthians 9:6). God promises success to those who follow his
laws.
At this
point, you might possibly be thinking, “What about Job?” He presumably did
nothing but was punished anyway. Wrong again! He was punished by Satan, he was
tested by God and in the end he was blessed abundantly for his faithfulness.
The promises made by God are on the Solid Rock; Jesus.
