I really hope I can do this justice and and without prejudice. I am praying as I write this that if any one is offended by it, it will be an offense that will lead them to search out why it is exactly they are offended. That they will allow the Holy Spirit to reveal a truth to them that will set them free as the message I draw from, did me.
Yesterday, our Teaching Pastor started a new series entitled "Growing Your Faith". The first segment is "Guarding Grace". It was by far one of the top 3 best messages I have ever heard. One of his greatest teaching tools is the way he goes behind the scene, and pulls out the whys, wheres, and who to's, the message is written. This makes all the diffference in the world. I hope I can do his teaching justice with this blog.
Eph. 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is by the gift of God, NOT A RESULT OF WORKS, so that no one may boast."
I think that's pretty clear, don't you? You and I have nothing to do with our salvation with the exception of having faith in Jesus and His work on the cross. It IS NOT Jesus, PLUS...-teaching in children's church; Jesus, PLUS-reading your Bible 1 hour and day, and praying on your knees for another 2 hours; Jesus, PLUS-being in the ministry or volunteering at your church; Jesus, PLUS-being there every time there is a service, special program, ladies night, men's get together, etc...You get the picture.
But how many of us were taught, and actually believe there is a "plus" side to our salvation? I know I was taught from a very young age that your salvation depended on having a relationship with the Lord, AND obeying your parents. (Actually Ex. 20:12 says "Honor your father and mother that you may have a long life" -it doesn't address your salvation at all) I was also taught, salvation also depended upon your abstinence from drinking, smoking, and cursing. Well...there are at least 4 scriptures in the OT that tell us how to store our wine, why would we need to know that if we weren't to have it? Lev. 10:8-9 tells us that God told Aaron "not to drink strong drink or wine before entering the Tabernacle lest you die". No where does it say they were not to drink it any other time. Proverbs 31: 1-7 says that "KINGS should not drink wine or hard liquor because they may stumble in their duties, BUT that hard liquor is for the sick and wine for the depressed, let them drink to forget their poverty and misery". No where does it say it effects your salvation.
As far as smoking, there is no scripture that rebukes us for; unless you count the ones that talk of taking care of your bodies "for they are the temples of the Holy Ghost". Okay...smoking is obviously not good for you, and how many preachers have I heard, denounce smoking and drinking as sins that will send you to Hell, while they pace about the stage dragging their oversized bellies that are huge from gluttony? Phil 3:19 says "their god is their appetite".
I am not trying to justify any of these things; I am merely trying to point out that we have turned into the Pharisees and have added law upon law to the commandments that Jesus gave us believing we must obey them in order to ensure our salvation.. Laws that we try to weight down each other with, and pretend that their sin will strip them of their salvation while ours won't. We have been taught, as our parents and their parents were taught that if you do any of those things, or even worse, that it somehow nullifies the work on the cross. That there are things from which even Jesus himself cannot save us from. Does that sound right? No, of course not! There is nothing that can separate us from the love lof God. He loves us unconditionally. Obviously we will sin,- "we sin because we are sinners, we are not sinners because we sin", but God's grace covers us. It assures us that He knows we will sin (do you think He didn't know Adam and Eve would fall??) but he loves us anyway and Jesus' sacrifice was enough to cover anything we may do. Even murder, adultry, and anything else we think is an unpardonable sin. If we truly have faith that Jesus is the son of God, that He died for our sins (all of them) and believe He saves us, there is nothing more to do to add to that. if we believe other wise, we take away from the significance of the cross and say "it wasn't enough".
Jesus' work on the cross covers all of the sins we have committed, sins we are committting, and the ones we will commit. Jesus is enough. Period. We are saved by grace alone. thru faith alone, in Christ alone. So many of us need to hear that and get out from under the weight, whether self imposed, or put there by others, the belief that there are so many other things we have to do in order to be saved.
I have a person in my life that had an overwhelming desire to come to Jesus, but after hearing what he was "suppose" to do in order to live a "holy" life, he said " I can't do this, it's just to hard". Doesn't the Bible say "my burden is light"? Why would God ask us to do something He knows we can't do??? He wouldn't, but people would. I learned yesterday these people are called Grace Killers.
I have know Grace Killers all my life; for 44 years, I was one. Well meaning Christians (some not so much) who honestly believe that Jesus is not enough. That it should be 'holiness as opposed to freedom in Jesus', and 'Christianity as a weight around your neck, instead of a song in your heart'. People who 'fixate on the externals' and 'use rulers to compare their salvation with others'. These people go down the check list of Christianity: went to both services on Sunday-check; Read my Bible today-check. Paid my tithe-check. Etc...They make it a chore and use guilt as their slide rule. I was one of those people and had to ask forgiveness from the person I spoke of. I had treid to weight him down with things I thought he needed to do. My motives were good but my knowledge rooted in ignorance.
These same people believe that they have been given the mandate from God to tell us how we are to live our lives. 3 times in my life (2 of those in the last 4 years) that I know the Holy Spirit spoke directly to me and rebuked me for listening to someone elses view of how I should behave instead of God's. I was so caught up in trying to be holy and believing someone else had a better idea of what that looked like than to listen to my creator. There is something totally messed up about that. It took some very hard lessons for me to learn that it is only about Jesus and what He wants for me-not what others think are best. Again, I say all these things knowing that I too was a Pharisee for way to long. I still struggle with judging others with the ruler I was taught to use. But I pray everyday that God will open my eyes even more to the attitudes of the wicked and deliver me from the same.
Our Pastor finished up by reading Phil 3:1-11 which tells us about Paul writing to the converts at a church where a group of Phariseeical people had decided that works played a huge part in the salvation experience. He goes on to list his resume'. If any one had the "works" part down-it was Paul. But he says in verses 7-9 that "all these things I once thought were worthwhile, I have thrown in the dung heap; so that I can put my trust and hope in Christ ALONE. Everything is worthless, I no longer count on salvation by being good enough or by obeying God's laws, but by trusting Jesus to save me; for God's way of making us righteous depends on faith in CHRIST ALONE".
Understanding though, that it certainly does not give us the freedom to sin but it frees us to obey.
I pray that this blog entry will reveal the Grace Killers in your life, open your eyes to the "works" attitudes you may have and give you a desire to reevaluate your commitment to place your complete trust in Jesus ALONE.
I'm gone!
No comments:
Post a Comment