Your best efforts are not good enough! – Wednesday, 28 March
| “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Galatians 2:16 KJV For the most part, we’ve grown up with a performance-based mentality that when we do right we get rewarded, and when we do wrong we get punished. The problem is that most of us carry this performance-based mentality through into our relationship with God where we believe that we only get what we deserve. We wrongly believe that when we are doing well God blesses us, and when we’re not doing well He punishes us. This is a treadmill of performance: you get tired and go nowhere. To the religious person, the gospel (good news of God’s grace – what He has done for us) is offensive (1 Corinthians 1:23) because the religious person takes pride in their good works and wrongly believes that God is pleased with them, too. The more we try to please God, the less we actually do! What pleases God is faith, not good works (Hebrews 11:6). Yes, good works are pleasing to Him but they are only acceptable to Him if born out of faith in what He has done. When we put faith in our works to be right with God, accepted and blessed by Him, then grace cannot flow in our lives. When we put faith in His finished work, grace begins to flow, and we easily experience His blessing and acceptance. A man is not justified (made right) by the works of the law. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be right with God through what you do, you will never be good enough for God through your efforts. The only way to be right with God is by believing in Jesus and what He has done for us. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1JKV “Our faith in Jesus transfers God’s righteousness to us and he now declares us flawless in his eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us.” Romans 5:1 TPT We are justified by faith – through faith we have received God’s righteousness. That means that God sees us as innocent and declares us flawless. We have peace with God because we have faith in Jesus and the fact that His finished work has made us right with God. We are not and can never be made right by our good works and best efforts to obey the law. “And since it is by God’s grace, it can’t be a matter of their good works; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a gift of grace, but earned by human effort.” Romans 11:6 TPT The nearly too good to be true news is that we can enjoy a close relationship with God as long as we’re basing it on what He has done for us (the pressure to perform is off!). As soon as we start basing our relationship with God on what we do and expect leverage with God because of our efforts, we cut ourselves off from Christ and His grace. “So that is why I don’t view God’s grace as something minor or peripheral. For if keeping the law could release God’s righteousness to us, the Anointed One would have died for nothing.” Galatians 2:21 TPT Jesus died so that being right with God wouldn’t be based on our ability to keep the law – and we would have never made itby our efforts! Grace is the nearly too good to be true news of what Jesus has done for us and is freely offering us – that we are right with God by believing in Him and not by serving Him through good works and best efforts. |
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