Blog

Observation

Jesus + nothing = right with God.

So many people believe that they must move God by their good works so that He will accept them, and if they are unable to reach the standard of good enough, then God will reject them. This is a prevailing story in our world that is entirely false. God shows us what His standards are, the law, so we can see how hopeless we are at self rightness. The role of the law is to make us guilty of being unable to jump higher enough to reach its standards. Not so we will go away a failure, but so we will stop trying to jump. If you think you are not good enough, that you will never reach the standards of righteousness set by the law, then the law has done its job. Now again, this is not to load you with guilt but to have you look for another way, a not your good works way. You see we only look for rescue when we know we are drowning. The law reveals to me I am drowning in my sin. “The law simply shows us how sinful we are.”

 

Now, I am ready for a saviour and God has gone out in front and saved me. “God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.” And this is exactly what God does in Jesus, He makes me right with Him through himself, through His actions. Jesus pays the price for my sin and makes me right with God. All Him, none me. So God goes ahead and before I even ask He makes me completely forever right with Him in what Jesus has done already. I simply receive the gift by exercising my faith to agree that I cannot save myself and accept His already achieved rightness in Jesus. I stop jumping, that is what God wants, and I enjoy Him, His presence, His love, His grace, for there is nothing to separate me now from His love and presence. I am right with Him.

 

We somehow turn the message of Gods goodness and grace into a message we don’t want to hear. Here are the challenges we face. Some say “I want to do it my way.” The religious want to make it themselves and make others perform according to their rules, their made laws, so they reject what God has done and start jumping and get out the whips making others jump. Then there are those who reject the concept of sin. They say “don’t call me a sinner.” They have no need for rescue and grace for they refuse to see that their behaviour has any consequence. They use their self-satisfaction as their moral compass and justify any behaviour that serves self as appropriate behaviour. If I can’t see my sin then I have no need of rescue. All the time Gods waits patiently with His offer of forgiveness and rightness always open for all who would come.

 

Application

Stop ignoring my guilt of sin, don’t put on my mask to try and look better, and see the goodness of God and my need for His grace and saving. I will never come under the sting of shame, condemnation, and disqualification, for this is to reject the power of what Jesus has done. I will live in all time rightness with God based on what Jesus has done. I will allow my intimacy with Him to shape my life with Him. But I will never be persuaded from being with Him because I am not good enough. He is good enough, I will just rest in that.

 

Response

Thank you that you make me right with you without anything from me but thanks. Thank you that to know rightness is to live in peace free from fear, anxiety and worry, it’s to live in love free from rejection, it’s to live in hope and provision that is not circumstantially shaped. It’s to never be alone and always celebrated. What an amazing gift is rightness based on Jesus plus nothing, I am so blessed to live in this story.

 

Meditation

Does your performance disqualify you from God’s presence?

How precious, and how powerful, is God’s grace to you?

JOURNEY DEEPER