Works or Grace?
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast.
The symptoms of sin are breaking the rules, but the essence of sin is taking a good thing and making it more important than God. It is taking good things and making them ultimates and living for them and being defined by them. That is the reason why in the Ten Commandments the first commandment, the primary commandment, is to have no other gods before me. Everything else, all of the other, the cheating, the lying, the murdering, the stealing, and all of that awful stuff, it all flows out of the first one.
No one is righteous, not even one; no one seeks for God (Romans 3:10). There are bad people who mug you and cheat and hurt people, and they, of course, are not looking for God. But here is what is scary about good and religious people. Good and religious people think that they are looking for God, but they are not. They both are taking things and making them into idols; but some idols lead you to be obedient to the law of God, and some idols lead you to be disobedient to the law of God. But no one is righteous, not even one; no one is seeking God! Good people think they are seeking God, but they are seeking a god that they can control through their good works-a god who owes them. Religious people say, I give God a record of righteousness, and then God owes me a blessing. But a Christian says, God through Jesus Christ has given me a perfect record of righteousness which I receive by faith, and now I live for him.
If you are a Christian, grace has come in and grabbed a hold of you and shown you that you can only be saved through the works of Jesus and not your own works.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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