Death is the wages of sin (Rom 6:23) and Jesus Christ had none (Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:22; 1 John 3:5; 2 Cor 5:21). Death, therefore, had no rightful claim on Him thus Jesus died an unnatural death. This means that Jesus, the true remnant of Israel, alone fulfilled the covenant from our side, pleasing God. And all who are united to Him share in His distinction that death has no rightful claim on them (6:23b). So Jesus alone is our focus, our religion, our righteousness. Yet we still, as Christians often get caught up in our own spirituality. That is, we focus incessantly on how we are doing, whether reading the Word, praying, involving myself in a body of like-minded believers, being a witness,. etc. We often do this in a way where we expect to win God's approval and somehow become more spiritual. While all these things are all good and helpful when done in the right spirit, it is not exactly what is meant by giving oneself fully to the Lord, or being spiritual.
To give oneself to the Lord means that you begin align yourself with God and his redemptive plan for the world. It means to lose all confidence in oneself and recognize Jesus as the all in all. The gospel remains our only hope as a Christian. All of these other activities don't make you in any way more pleasing to God. He is already pleased with you in Christ and the covenant he has made with you in Him. When we realize this, these other activities are overflow, not duty driven acts to put on our spiritual resum�. Our delight is in the Lord and the story of His redemptive activity through history culminating in his finished work in Christ on the cross. It is not about our piety ... instead we work out of salvation in fear and trembling before the Lord. The more we look at Him the more we are transformed into His likeness (2 Cor 2:18). As long as we view the core of spirituality as some morbid self-introspection and practice of disciplines then we fall into the danger of taking our eyes off of Jesus.
Sinclair Ferguson aptly said,
"from the New Testament's point of view, those who have almost forgotten about their own spirituality because their focus is so exclusively on their union with Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished are those who are growing and exhibiting fruitfulness. Historically speaking, whenever the piety of a particular group is focused on OUR spirituality that piety will eventually exhaust itself on its own resources. Only where our piety forgets about itself and focuses on Jesus Christ will our piety nourished by the ongoing resources the Spirit brings to us from the source of all true piety, our Lord Jesus Christ."
So the question often arises to me about how much spiritual activity is enough? The answer is the same every time: what Jesus has accomplished for you is already sufficient. God is as pleased as He can be with you and could not be more pleased with you because of Jesus. Preach this gospel to yourself every day and you will begin to see a new world open before you. You will rest in Christ's completed work and out of the overflow of the new life you have in Him, you will do all things filled with the Holy Spirit. He becomes greater while you become less. The most mundane, banal activity then becomes spiritual ... not simply when you are reading your Bible. You don't curry God's favor or earn more points in heaven by your activities. God has set his affection on you. You are his son - this is a reality to those who are in Christ. Recall in the parable of the prodigal son where the older brother is angry with God because he said, "I have worked all my life for you and never given me a slaughtered calf." He saw his relationship with his father as a servant rather than a son. First, you must know that you are worse than could ever be imagined and are impotent to do anything on your own. Such despairing in oneself is necessary to true spirituality. Yet God is more gracious than you imagined and adopts you as his very own son. When you know you are thus loved then all of what you do will reflect that. You will forgive others, and delight in good works not because God needs to be appeased, but because you are loved by him and that overflows in your life to others. Oh, but how easy it is to forget this and slip back into perfectionism. The Apostle Paul waned against this tendency in Galatians 3:3 when he said, "having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" Here we clearly see Paul's frustration in persons who think that we start with grace in the gospel but then move on to perfection through other means.
A common religion of our time is one of moralism, and many evangelicals tend to moralism without even realizing they are. Moralism seeks to achieve perfection through behavior modification. It often accompanies the religion of "family values" that we hear about each day on the radio. This kind of religion risks self-righteously looking down on unbelievers by putting our supposed morality in a comparison with theirs. It is as if we believe our entrance into Christianity is by grace but that our lives in Christ are due to our maintained by some kind of moralism. Those who believe this fall into the trap of (at least subconsciously) believing that is not grace alone that make us to differ with others. But we must always remember that God's commands to us to be holy and love our neighbor etc. are not there to show our ability, but to reveal our inability (Rom 3:19, 20). So instead of spending our time gazing at our navels in the hope that we become more spiritual and can attain some kind of perfection, true Christianity recognizes and faces up to our sinful imperfection. We can never obey God's commands no matter how hard we try. Anyone who thinks that they could possibly live sinlessly for an hour or a day has not yet come face to face with God and his utter holiness. We flatter ourselves to think this way but the apostolic assertion is that if a man shall keep the whole law and yet offend at one point he is guilty of all.
The good news is that we do not need to ascend to God via human effort (an impossible supposition) because He has descended to us. The philosophy of the age, even among Christians who should know better, is to focus on what we human beings can do to be saved. True Christianity, I believe, teaches that there is nothing we can do... we must despair of ourselves, because what we could not do for ourselves, Christ has done for us. Unfortunately a large percentage of Christians think moralism, avoiding wrongdoing of every kind, is what Christianity is all about, (otherwise why so much effort to get our morals put into law) not realizing that we need to repent of trusting in our good deeds and bad ones. Paul, says to the Philippians that all his good works are but rubbish compared to Christ. But even though we know this, our remaining corruption still deceives us sometimes into thinking that God wants something from us other than Christ. It is easy to see that much of Christianity has slipped into this error because the barriers and differences with Roman Catholicism seem to be coming down everywhere I look. Even in Peter Jennings interview with member's of Ted Haggard's church people were saying that they don't see that much difference anymore. I am not saying that unity would not be a good thing, but this unity is not based on truth but on family values, political alliances and morality, all of which are not the gospel.
But none of us can live up to the high standards we impose upon ourselves and often hide it when we fail, thinking that we must put on a good face to other Christians. That is called hypocrisy. Our many attempts at perfection often lead to immoral behavior, especially when it makes us feel superior to others. Rather, we should lead with our weaknesses and admit our sinfulness which points each other and the world to Christ. The world would believe us much more if we simply stopped pretending and boasting about being so much more moral than we really are. Real humility would go a long way in opening eyes for the problem with humanity is not simply our committing various sins, but with our very natures which we desperately need to be delivered from, something only Christ can do, not only at the beginning of our salvation, but each day. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be good, it is God's command, but when we are honest, not one is able to even come close to achieving this goal.
All ways which consist of human effort to reach God, whether it be through the will, intellect or emotions, are futile. We have no hope to reach God this way, for not only do we utterly fail to live up to God's holy law, but we have no desire to do so, except by God's grace. True Christian piety begins with God's decent to us in Christ and our ascent to Him through Christ. This leaves zero room for human pride. It is all about what God does for us. Only Christ fulfilled the covenant and achieved the moral perfection that a holy God justly requires. And his death bore the punishment for our willful rebellion and sinful passions. The Scripture requires perfection of you, but you don't have the moral ability to do it. God commands us to be righteousness then turns around and says that we have none (Isaiah 64:6). All self-righteousness is, therefore, out the door. We are guilty of sin against a holy God and therefore, justly deserve God's wrath. Agreeing with this reveals that the Holy Spirit has begun doing a work of grace in you and is the first step in conversion. God law, therefore, must be preached to the proud but the gospel to the broken-hearted, as Martin Luther says. When the Law breaks our pride, autonomy, self-sufficiency and the belief in the utter impotence to save ourselves, then and only then does the gospel become good news (and understandable). Any pulpit or gospel presentation that leaves out God's wrath presents an incomplete and incomprehensible "gospel", but many are doing it. Only in Christ are God's holy demands toward us fully satisfied. The Scripture testifies that believing that this is accomplished, not by our will, but by the grace of God (Rom 9:16; John 6:65). The preachers job, therefore, is to continually place the law and the gospel before Christians.
Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works.
You can tell the tree by the fruit it bares..
No we do not have to have works to get saved we cant do anything to justify ourselfs...
But us "evangelicals" as you call us, know this great truth that prayer and church and the word of God is what gets us closer to him its how this flesh dies.. I must decrease so that he may increase...
Seems to me like the reformers want to be free from living a holy life which is clearly what we are commanded to do.
Jesus himself said "he who loves me keeps my comandments" thats as plain as it gets I love him so I try my best to live holy and the bottom line is if you dont try your best to die to your flesh and live a holy life abstaining from sin as much as you can and continuly asking Him to help you with your sin then YOU DONT REALLY LOVE HIM.. I am not direceting that at anyone what I am saying is this many people use grace as an ocasion to sin thats blasphemy you cant claim Christ and live in WILLFULL SIN that will get you UNSAVED... your name "blotted out" as it says a couple times in the Word of God.. you cant say a sinners prayer and get up thinking you have it because you dont
From what I understand, when we repent of our sins and believe in the Son of the living God, we are saved(John 3:16). It is by the grace of God and not by our own efforts(Eph.2:8~9).
Those who are born of the Spirit of Christ are under a new covenant(2Cor.3:6) sealed by the blood of Jesus. We are no longer subject to external laws(the law of sin and death) but rather we are governed by the law of the Spirit who gives life(Rom.8:1~3).
The law of Christ is to love God and our neighbors:
Mark 12:28-31 (NIV)
The Greatest Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, �Of all the commandments, which is the most important?�
29 �The most important one,� answered Jesus, �is this: �Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.� 31 The second is this: �Love your neighbor as yourself.� There is no commandment greater than these.�
John 13:34-35 (NIV)
34 �A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.�
Romans 13:8-12 (NIV)
Love Fulfills the Law
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, �You shall not commit adultery,� �You shall not murder,� �You shall not steal,� �You shall not covet,�[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: �Love your neighbor as yourself.�[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
I pray that in whatever we do or say, we do it because the love of God compels us to.
eisha could you please read the article before bashing reformers which you obviously know nothing about. The whole article is about God and his work. There is nothing man can do to live a holy life unto God besides through his only begotten son.
Our churches are full of thorns. Our God Jesus said that it will be until the Judgement day.
That's why our enemies are even christians in churches.
Amazing.
Donna, be ready to see it.
They are part of the local churches, but they have never belonged to the Church of God that's why they will be judged by God and cast out to the lake of fire.
What is the difference between thorns, goats, dogs and the sheep of God?
Jusus will judge us all. But dogs will be outside of the New Jerusalem. Because they were not born of God!!!!!
That's why Donna be FAITHFUL to our Lord Jesus obeying Him and loving people. Those who love people:hearts:, are born of God.
@DonnaI did read the artical and my reply was to the bashing of the "evangelicals" we are very clear on the fact that without the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus on the cross there is no regineration we are clear on that @Ken the bible says plainly names will be blotted out of the lambs book of life so in order for it to be blotted out that means it has to be in there so someone cant have there name in the lambs book of life without being saved so then again you get saved and then for whatever reason turn your back then you are unsaved or back slidden..
Amen to that, sister elisha. Repentance is an ongoing process in a believer's life.
2 Chronicles 7:14 "If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
Luke 17:3-4 "Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him."
1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Jeremiah 36:3 "It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin."
