Friday, July 15, 2022
“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119:133 KJV).
May we share the Psalmist’s wish!
Contrary to what we hear ad nauseum in religious tradition, the God of the Bible does not save us from our sins based on our religious performance. Why? It is no secret that we cannot perform perfectly. Whatever the rite, ritual, commandment, or ceremony in which we choose to participate, there is no guarantee we will even have the right heart attitude—and what matters most is inside (heart) not outside (movements of hands, feet, lips, et cetera). Only a humble soul will admit guilt before God.
When the Lord Jesus Christ visited Israel during His earthly ministry, He announced in John 10:10: “…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” In verse 28, He continued: “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” Christ did not come to give them (or us) a system of rules and regulations. Actually, they had already had the Law of Moses for 15 centuries—and these souls were still dead in their trespasses and sins! Their religious performance had gotten them nowhere spiritually. Christ’s earthly ministry was thus designed to bring them back to their Creator and grant them eternal life (His own life).
Although God does not save us on the basis of how we live (because He already knows we are weak and our performance is always insufficient), that does not mean He does not care how we live. Our flesh or sin nature—the nature we have inherited from our father Adam—generates works (good and bad) that are nothing more than our futile attempts to replace God’s perfect life with our own life. Instead of we substituting God’s life with our own, God gives us a new nature in Christ when we trust His death, burial, and resurrection as adequate payment for our sins. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Out of this new nature originates true good works….
Our latest Bible Q&A: “What is an ‘earnest’ in Scripture?”
333 Words of Grace 