A “Religion” is a set of behavioral rules and a promise that a man can be justified righteous before God if he obeys the rules.  Man is born naturally “religious”, knowing what is right and wrong based on the “natural law of God” that is written on his heart.  But since man wants to be in control of his destiny, he controls the rules of his religion in order that he is guaranteed a passing grade before God.  But God doesn’t grade on the curve of religious rules, God grades on the cross.  God demands a life of perfect moral righteousness and a life that only does God’s righteous will.  But this is an impossibility because not only do we fail to keep the moral code written on our heart, we can not know God’s will because we are Spiritually disconnected from Him because of sin.  Man’s works that attempt to prove his righteousness are like filthy rags before the righteous eyes of God.  They are simply self serving works that proclaim that man is in charge of his life and does not need God to reign and rule over him.  This is why God sent His Son Jesus Christ in the form of a man, to live the perfect life that satisfies God’s righteousness.  God made a way for man to be justified, by establishing a personal “Relationship” with Him by grace through faith in His only begotten Son Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.“

Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good or good people better but He came to make dead people alive by giving them a new life in Him.  Man is dead in his sin and there is no amount of good works that he can do or religions rules that he can follow that will defeat the enemy of sin or pay the price for his sin that separates him from the love of God.  Only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ can a person be “born again” and Spiritually connected to God, eternally secure in God by the grace of God.  It is God’s “grace” that saves a man from sin not a mans “works”.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Christ has set us free from the ceremonial laws that were given to the Jews in order to identify them as a peculiar people unto the Lord.  As the Jewish people and other nations saw their ceremonial laws that required the blood of an innocent animal to pay the cost of sin, it pointed the Jews and the nations to the Messiah who would one day come as the perfect lamb of God and provide His own blood as the final sacrifice for sin.  It is finished concerning the payment for sin, Jesus has paid the price.  And it is finished concerning the animals sacrifices and ceremonial laws of Moses, Jesus has fulfilled the law.  And it is finished concerning living the perfect life of obedience toward God.  Jesus has made a way for man to be Spiritually connected to God, by grace through faith in Christ you can be born-again, and have new Spiritual life in Christ that does not die.  Christ has set us free from the penalty of “Spiritual” death that is due us because we are sinners.

We are no longer under the ceremonial laws of Moses but the “moral” laws of God are still in effect.  And the number one moral law of God is Deuteronomy 6:5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  However, it is only possible to keep this law by  acknowledging that God is Lord over your life.  Though your own strength you may be able to keep the other commandments such as “do not steal” and “do not murder” but this is vanity, and a mere appearance of righteousness.  For Jesus said if you are angry with someone you have committed murder in the sight of God.  And more importantly, you are a murderer because your sin has murdered the son of God.  And you are a thief because you take God’s resource from His world to feed your life but you do not honor him by acknowledging that God is Lord over this world and over your life.

The whole world groans under the effects of sin, the destruction and decay that leads to death.  The first peopled who violated the moral law passed the virus to us and the curse as well, as God told Adam and Eve in the garden “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”  The actual Hebrew translation is “dying you shall die”, meaning that when you die physically you will also die Spiritually and remain spiritually separated from God.  Yet, God sacrificed the first innocent lamb, and the blood of the animal temporarily covered the sin of Adam and Eve until the the perfect lamb of God came and gave His blood on the cross of Calvary, once for all.

Some people say the church age is the age of God’s grace (where is person is saved by undeserved favor from God) but salvation has always been by grace through faith.  All the O.T. believers that went before us did not deserve salvation anymore than we do.  It was by faith that Abraham was justified before God.  Abraham was saved by grace through faith in the Jesus who would come and pay for his sin.  And today a person is saved by grace through faith in the Jesus who did come and pay for his sin.   Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

Christianity is not a set of religious rules we have to try to keep in order to please God but it is a relationship with God that is paid for by the blood sacrifice of Jesus for our sin.  We can not come to God and have a relationship with God unless we come in repentance of our sin.  Both a turning away from sin and turning toward God are necessary, because sin and God are in opposite directions from one another, as far as the east is from the west.  Only be grace through faith in Jesus Christ can a person be saved from sin and death.    GRACE – God’s Riches At Christ Expense

– Rogersings

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

 

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

 

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

 

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

 

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

 

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

 

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.

0

0