Ephesians 2:8-9
"Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works, so no one can boast."
I've recently visited this topic from several different directions. But the Holy Spirit keeps putting it on my heart, so here's another swing at it. May this one hit it out of the park.
Human effort is insufficient for salvation. It always has been and always will be. On your own, you'll never be able to overcome the sin debt and sin nature that stands between you and God.
- God's justice requires that your sin-debt be paid in full.
- Heaven's purity requires that your sin nature--spirit, soul, and body--be fully transformed.
In spite of those things, God still wants as many of us as with Him in Heaven as He can get. So, His plan to take people to Himself has to account for two full-stop roadblocks.
Roadblock #1: Our Sin Debt
The first roadblock keeping us from Heaven is our inability to pay our own sin debt (Romans 3:10-18; Romans 3:23).
We can't make that payment no matter how hard we try and no matter how much we think our good outweighs our bad.
- Since there's nothing we can do to pay our sin debt, the first part of God's plan was having Jesus pay Humanity's sin debt.
- Jesus paid all of our sin debt for us (Isaiah 53:6; John 1:29; 1 John 2:2). Through Jesus, it has been paid in full (Isaiah 1:18; John 1:29; Romans 6:23; 1 John 2:2)
- No one can add to or take away from what He paid.
First, let's think about what Jesus gets out of it.
By paying that awful price on the Cross, He bought for Himself the opportunity to transform you into someone forgiven, pure, and fit to be with Him in Heaven's eternity. Buying that opportunity made the suffering He went through worth it to Him.
He gave Himself the opportunity to transform you. That's why He went through what He did. It's not because of any supposed righteousness you bring to Him, but because of the true righteousness He can bring to you...if only you let Him (2Corinthians 5:17-21).
Because of Jesus' payment, the door to right standing with God is wide open. But you have to choose to go through it.
Roadblock #2: Our Sin Nature
The second roadblock keeping us from Heaven is our sin nature. Because every one of us is contaminated with a sin nature, Jesus paying our sin debt is only half the battle. Being set free from our sin nature is the other half. That is a full transformation that involves our free will, the freedom He gave us to accept or reject Him and His ways.
Again, in God's plan for our salvation, He did the first part for us. But because He gave us free will, He can't do the second part for us.
- He won't force anyone to choose His plan.
- We make that choice for ourselves.
Jesus died to pay our sin debt, but He didn't stay dead. After His death on the Cross, He rose again to be the Enabler, the Master and the Conductor of our total transformation (Romans 4:25).
That means that
- In Jesus, you can be someone in whom His Spirit dwells. (Romans 8:9-11; 1 Corinthians 3:16)
- In Jesus, you can be transformed into someone who expresses His heart and demonstrates His character (Galatians 5:22-23)
- In Jesus, anyone can be fully transformed. Anyone can go from being totally unfit for Heaven to being totally unfit for anything that's not Heaven.
He wants you to be forgiven and fully transformed from the inside out, spirit, soul, and body.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV):
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
He doesn't want you to be
- A superficially modified version of your old self,
- A religious-looking version of your old self, or
- A dressed-up version of your old self.
He wants you to be forgiven and fully transformed from the inside out.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV):
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
That sounds like total transformation to me.
The second part of God's plan starts when you choose to accept His payment and turn your life around by turning it over to Him, the Risen Christ.
Surrendering to His Lordship and transformation is totally up to you.
- Making that choice is called repentance.
- If you reject this second half of God's plan, the first half of His plan--Jesus' payment--does you no good. (1 John 5:11-12)
If you hope to be justified before God through self-effort, you're making a fatal mistake. Anyone who tries to earn right standing before God is rejecting Jesus' payment and rescue.
Many people have been taught that good works, rituals, and church sacraments make them right before God. But those things most definitely do not. Those things don't produce salvation and don't get anyone born again. They never have and never will.
What works is faith in Him, accepting His undeserved payment and surrendering to His totally undeserved rescue.
Don't try to show Him that you’ve somehow earned His forgiveness.
- You didn't earn it. None of us has (Job 41:11).
- He paid our sin debt out of the goodness of His heart, not because of any supposed goodness in our old sin nature (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 5:8; Romans 7:18).
That's why He said He would give us a new heart and spirit, both things we desperately need (Ezekiel 36:26).
Don't get me wrong. He has most definitely called you to a life of goodness and good works (Ephesians 2:10), but remember that those things don't give birth to salvation. No, salvation gives birth to a life of goodness and good works. Many people get that backwards.
Keep the first thing the first thing. You must belong to Jesus and surrender to His transformation first. His transformation always works from the inside out.
- Everything He does for us, in us, and through us is totally undeserved. It's all by grace.
- Trying to approach God through your own efforts and supposed worthiness denies the clear New Testament requirement to rely exclusively on Christ's sacrifice alone.
So quit trying to add your goodness and works to what He paid. That's pride and unbelief. It's like saying that what he paid wasn't quite enough so He needs you to push it over the top.
Pride wears many disguises.
- Don't let your pride think He picked you because you're worthy to have your sin debt paid by Him. You're not.
- He didn't pick you because you're a scooch better than the next guy or have more potential than him. Those thoughts are lies rooted in pride.
- God doesn't save you based on your abilities or potential. He saves you based only on your surrender and faith in Jesus. As the saying goes, He doesn't save the qualified; He qualifies the saved.
Here's the bottom line. Your part is to have a humble and contrite heart, admit your complete dependence on Him, then accept His payment by surrendering your life to His transforming rescue. That is salvation by faith.
Jesus gave us this parable in Luke 18:9-14 (NKJV):
Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Whatever your church or denomination teaches, I'm cutting to the chase. I'm not asking you a theological question. I am asking you to take a hard look before God at what's in your heart.
Deep inside,
- Do you feel like if it depends on you, you'll never make it?
- Do feel like your salvation, if it's ever going to happen, is totally dependent upon Jesus' payment and rescue?
- Do you want Him to transform you inside and out?
- Do you want to be right with Him, surrendering your life to His forgiveness and rule?
If you can Yes to all of that, tell Him about it.
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