We are saved by Christ's merits

We are saved by Christ’s merits

While Jesus was walking about the land of Israel he was asked by a young man, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

That question has been dogging people ever since. They want to know what they must do. In Luke 18:19-22, Jesus responds to the young man’s question, “…You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false witness, honor your father and mother.’

“All these I have kept since I was a boy,’ (the man answered Jesus)

“When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’”

Just as we have been talking about the past couple of weeks, we are to abandon everything for Christ.

Like all of us, the man wanted to be able to do something. Needless to say, he followed the commandments Jesus prescribed and most would say the man was living an honorable life. We don’t get the whole story, but we can probably bet the man had an unhealthy obsession with his own finances, and Jesus knew this and he cut to the core, just like He can do with us. In essence, Jesus told the man to get rid of that, which comes between God and us.

 Jesus tells those around him how hard it is to be saved, and they ask, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

What did Jesus just say? Well, he said we couldn’t do it. There is nothing any of us can do to warrant our salvation. So, what saves us then?

Well, Jesus does. Yes, Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for our sin, but his life on this planet up until that time, made him a worthy sacrifice.

As Paul noted in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

So, as Charles Spurgeon noted, we are not saved because of our own actions, we are saved purely on Christ’s merits.

There is nothing else we need. There is no other prescription to our malady than Christ. Many times we focus solely on the cross as our means of salvation, and forget the perfect life Jesus led leading up to that defining moment. One, though, cannot be divorced from the other. The entirety of Jesus, and his deity was placed upon the cross.

The perfect lamb was brought to the sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. To suggest there is anything else a soul needs but Christ, is to deny the fullness of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.

In Sunday School classes all across the country children are taught the Roman Road: For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved; For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord; that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation; for Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

That is our path. For those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, those who believe Jesus is who He claimed to be, then our sins are forgiven and we can look forward to an eternity spent in the presence of our Savior.

In other words, when the man asked Jesus how he could inherit eternal life, his answer, and our answer is Christ alone.

So simple, yet so hard for some to understand, but in the end, it is the only knowledge in this world we truly need — spread the word.

All for Christ or nothing at all

All for Christ or nothing at all.

No, that is not the gospel. Jesus doesn’t tell us to give away everything we have before coming to him, or even after coming to him. Once we are Christ’s everything we have is his, and everything he has is given, or will be given, to us. But, when it comes to the heart, Jesus doesn’t want anything but the seat of honor at our heart’s table.

“Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, even their own life — such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” — Luke 14:25-27

Those who ridicule the faith handed down to us by Christ will say that is a contradiction as Christ and the apostles tell us to love one another, even our enemies. It is true; we are commanded to love one another, so the question begs, “What was Jesus talking about here?”

From scripture we learn that Abraham was a man of great faith. God even asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, to show his faith to God, on Mount Moriah. Abraham obeyed. He took his son, made the trek to what is now Jerusalem, scaled the mountain, bound his son and prepared to plunge a dagger into his chest, but God stopped him, and provided Abraham a substitution sacrifice in the form of a ram. What we see in Abraham is a willingness to abandon everything for God.

This is the same for Jesus and us.

R.A. Torrey wrote, “the affection and devotion to His glory, which Jesus demands, are such as can be properly yielded only to God. As we are to trust Christ for everything, so we are to give up everything for Him, should He demand the sacrifice. This was a doctrine which the Lord repeatedly taught… See at once how uncompromising is the Savior’s demand. Father, mother, son, daughter, wife and even life itself are to be sacrificed, if devotion to Christ necessitates the surrender. All creatures, and all things, and our very lives are to be to us as nothing when compared to Christ. God Himself demands no less of us, and no more.”

So, are we living by faith if we are not willing to give up everything for the sake of Christ? Absolutely not, we are living in denial, and most ashamedly we are not living for the glory of Christ.

Those of us here in America have become spoiled. None of us have been asked to give up everything for Jesus, other than enduring an occasional snicker from a rogue soul there isn’t much we suffer inside this great nation.

Still, we should all be ready for all of that to go away. In fact, it is imperative that we desire the outside world and its corrupting influences to leave us alone so that we can devote every thought, every desire, every wish, every hurt and every ounce of joy to our beloved Jesus, who did give up all of those things in order that we may bask in and share in his glory, bought for us at the cross of Calvary.

So, we come back to our opening line, all for Christ or nothing at all. As Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 5: 14,15, “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all were dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”

Many of us live for many things, and not just worldly and unholy things. Many live for their families, many live to serve others and to offer their assistance if needed anywhere. These motives are beautiful, but the sad truth is, without Christ, they are just empty gestures. It is a good thing to feed a man who is hungry, but if no prayers are offered for him, if the gospel is not shared, his hunger will come back and his soul will be just as hollow as ever.

But, with Christ, the man who desires food spirit will no longer crave for something because it will be filled with the Spirit of Christ.

When and only when we abandon ourselves, as noted last week, will we be able to be utilized by God.

Christians, we are strangers in this land, and with each passing day and minute, our status as one being counted in the fold of Christ, makes us more unwelcome in this wretched world. Knowing this, what makes us hold to it and its wicked enticements? We should seek to throw it all away, even that which is closest to us, in order to serve Christ more fully.

In this day and age of “anything goes,” people the world over say Jesus was a teacher of love, he wanted us to love everybody all the time and spread that love. A whole social gospel has risen up in the terrible wake of this flawed teaching.

Yes, Jesus Christ is the embodiment of God’s love for us. Through Christ’s love, displayed at the cross, we have been reconciled to God. Yes, Christ and the apostles taught us to love one another, but we are taught another lesson, we are to never let anything, even our father, mother, wife and children come between us and Christ.

Jesus was unambiguous — it’s all or nothing.

Hopefully, this is a message we all are hearing, and one that is still being preached to us in pulpits and by the Holy Spirit. Nothing else should matter to us but Christ, and we should be willing to climb the steep heights of Moriah and put it all to death for our Savior, which is mirrored in our salvation when we put to death our sinful selves and become a new creature in Christ.

That is our destiny, and may it come quickly Lord Jesus.

Abandon all but faith

One of the favorite Bible stories told to children is Daniel in the Lion’s den.

It is a wonderful story of faith and trust in God, and in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a story anathema to the old American way of thinking, but one that is all-important for the believer — total reliance.

Before we get to the reading of scripture, let’s do a little background on what was happening around Daniel.

Daniel was a powerful man in Nebuchadnezzar’s administration. Babylon ruled the cradle of civilization and most of the developed world at that time, about 600 years or so before the birth of Jesus Christ. Daniel saw the king’s sons take over for him and the kingdom began to crumble until the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon in 539 B.C.

Now Cyrus is in charge of the new Middle East empire, and once again Daniel, the Jew, showed himself worthy to the new Persian king, so some scheming officials decided to shut Daniel down. They went to the king and asked him to make a law that nobody could worship any thing but king Darius. The king agreed and made a law. Needless to say, Daniel would bow to only the God of Israel, and the men scheming against Daniel didn’t forget to remind the king of the new law to which he agreed.

 “Then they said to the king, ‘Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, Your Majesty, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day.’ When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed; he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him.

“Then the men went as a group to King Darius and said to him, ‘Remember, Your Majesty, that according to the law of the Medes and Persians no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed.’

“So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions, den. The king said to Daniel, ‘May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!’

“A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s situation might not be changed. Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him. And he could not sleep.

“At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, ‘Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?’

“Daniel answered, ‘May the king live forever! My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.’

“The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” — Daniel 6:13-23

Quickly, there are three things we must realize and strive to be as representatives of Christ on this dying planet.

• The first thing for us to remember is that we must live lives worthy of the name of Christ. Many can call themselves by that name, but few are the ones who live it. Those that do live for Christ alone standout like a sore thumb in this world of sin. The same was true in Daniel’s day.

For sure, there were many who called themselves Jews, but in name only. They did not live like a separate people unto God, they lived as the nations. But, Daniel lived a life devoted to God and the people saw it, and there were many who hated him for it.

• That leads us to the second point; people will hate us because we live a life not for the world, but for the One who saved us from the world.

Jesus told us in Luke 21:17 “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.”

Daniel was willing to live that life, even in the face of criminal penalty, because he served his God above and beyond anything else. God had given Daniel everything he had attained, Daniel knew this and he would look to nothing else but God for his needs.

Open you eyes folks and look at the world around you, the forces are arrayed against the God of Israel, the forces are arrayed against those who are called by Christ’s name. There is a deep-seeded hate within people when it comes to Christ.

We cannot expect the world to love us when everything we believe in with Christ stands against everything the world holds up as important. In the world’s eyes a true believer in Christ is the enemy and we should expect to be treated as such.

Daniel was not surprised by the actions taken against him. He did not say, “I’m a good man, I don’t deserve this.” Daniel knew what was coming, and never once did he let that stand between him and God.

• The third thing we must learn, when we abandon everything, all of our so-called knowledge and wisdom, our reliance on others and we completely put ourselves in God’s hands, then God not only will rescue us from the mouths of lions, but he will use us as a witness.

Filling out the rest of Daniel 6, after Daniel was pulled out of the lions’ den, Darius threw his accusers in, and issued a decree across the land that everybody in every part of his kingdom must fear and reverence the God of Daniel.

In John 8, we see the image of a woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus. According to the Law, death would soon overtake her. As she laid on the ground before Jesus’ feet, she had no other hope, the only thing she could do was to abandon herself to the strange man standing in front of her.

In the face of certain death, Jesus sent her accusers away, then he said to the woman, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’

“She said, ‘No one, Lord.’

And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

Her hope was gone, but in Jesus she found life. What happened to her was written in the gospels and because she trusted in Jesus to save her, her life became a witness to others.

In Dante’s “Inferno,” there is a sign for those entering out of limbo and into the circles of Hell, it read, “Abandon all hope ye that enter here.”

For those alive here on earth without Christ, it seems that is their motto. They have no hope, but for the Christian, our sign should read, “Abandon all the world, and enter the hope that is Jesus!”

Each of us must ask this question, are we holding on to something in this world, or are you willing to abandon all for the sake of Christ so that your life can be held up as a witness to the world?

If the answer is yes, then ask Jesus to fill you with his spirit, confess your sins to him, turn away from them and turn to the one who will wash you clean with his own precious blood.

What a wonderful savior we serve.

Serve the Lord your God and abandon all else

There are a lot of pastors out there who like to say Jesus would use hyperbole in his lessons to his followers to get his point across.

In Mark 9: 42-48, we see this example.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’”

There may be a little hyperbole in Jesus’ statement, I’ve heard preachers say such, but Jesus isn’t exaggerating in these verses.

In our daily life, a believer should seek to never stand between a person and salvation. How important is this? Important enough that Jesus said it would be better for a millstone to be hung around our neck and thrown into a large body of water than for us to keep a person from coming to Jesus.

Charles Spurgeon once noted that everything that offends God should offend us. Much of what is acceptable, and in fact upright, in society today is offensive to God. These compromised morals have found their way into churches and now what is acceptable in society is acceptable in church.

“Where two hearts are bound together in the bonds of love, they are quite sure to endeavor to remove everything out of the way that would cause pain to either,” Spurgeon noted in one of his sermons. “You cannot love me if you favor my enemies. You can have no affection for me if you delight to thrust before me that which vexes my spirit and grieves my heart. True love feels a sympathy with the person loved and learns to put away that which is obnoxious. Now say, Heart, do you put away from yourself that which God hates? Do you hate it because he hates it — not so much because your fellow Christians dislike it, or because the public judgment would go against it — but do you hate evil because it is detestable in the sight of God?”

For centuries empires ruled through divide and conquer. An outside force would move into an area and divide the people against themselves, once a society begins to devour itself, then it was easy for the invader to come in and take charge.

Folks, that is happening in our churches today. The enemy, in this case is Satan, and he is dividing our churches and our land.

At this point in my life I can confidently say I really don’t care about my country, my only goal is to do what is right in the sight of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and trust me, his views run contrary with that of our government and the direction of this land.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:17, “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you.’”

Some have taken this command to the extreme, we call Amish and folks like them extreme, but they have refused to compromise with the world. What have we done? We have wallowed in the pigsty and the stench of our filth covers us. As Jesus concluded in Mark 9:49-50 we are salt, “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

When we have wallowed with the pigs, how can we tell others to clean up their act?

We have failed to separate ourselves from society. We condone sexual perversion; we aid in the breakup of the family; we complain at the slaughter of innocents known as abortion, but we do little to stop it. We have utterly failed in our missionary work in this world, but what if we followed Spurgeon’s advice?

What if, we opened God’s word and opened up a line of communication with our Savior. He will speak to us through his holy word, and then our hearts will begin to align with that of our Savior.

The Pharisees were looked up to by the people in Jesus’ day, we would say they lived commendable lives, but Jesus held them in little regard and he called them the biggest hypocrites and sinners of all.

Many of Jesus’ indictments against them can be directed toward Jesus’ followers of today.

I would hate to count the times when I have caused someone to stumble, or to commit a sin against God. That is something for which I will have to answer for when Christ judges my life. While my salvation may not be in doubt, what I have done for Jesus is. I have offended many and for that I pray for Christ’s mercy.

As an individual believer, as a group of believers, as the corporate of believer known as the church, we should seek to let go of that which causes offense to God, as it would be better for us to go limping into heaven than send a single soul to hell because of the ineffectiveness of our witness to the world.

Do we want to be the church of Laodicea?

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold or hot. I wish you were one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see,” — Revelations 3:15-18

Will we be this church, or will we be the church of Philadelphia that will keep the word of God and not deny the name of Jesus?

Align our hearts with God. For those who are searching for truth, they should see us and say, “I want what they have?” For the world, we should be an offense, and take that as a badge of honor.

Serve the Lord your God and abandon all else, for nothing else can survive his refining fire.

Just as you are, nothing more needed

As the hour turns late, darkness envelopes a sleepless night as chili-cheese nachos topped with jalapenos do their work on the digestive system.

I was encouraged by a sister in Christ, the one who fed me those nachos, to use that time for Him. The only thoughts that filled my conscience during that time was that I was not worthy to speak the name of Christ, let alone write about his abundant riches. Inside, the still, small voice called out, “Come to me just as you are,” recalling the words of the great hymn by Charlotte Elliott.

The simple and haunting words of the hymn reminded me of my own lowliness and the war raging inside all of us who claim the name of Christ, as noted by the apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-20, 24-25 “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it…

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

This battle Paul spoke of rages interminably inside the confines of our minds and our spirits. While even if our heart belongs to Jesus, Satan wages an all-consuming battle against us and at times it may seem we are fighting a war that cannot be won. We look at our tree and see it is fruitless and we deem ourselves disappointments and failures, to Christ and our Heavenly Father and to those around us looking to us to see that glimmer of the Blessed Hope that gave us life.

As the tears of failure and disappointment flow down our faces, Jesus stares at us from the cross and beckons us to him; it is not a command, but an invitation. It is an invitation to pour all the doubts and fears upon the foot of the cross and allow him to take control of the battle raging inside us — a battle he has already won.

For those of us who have been washed in Christ’s blood, that is how salvation came to us; but too often we forget Christ and the cross and we walk away from Calvary thinking everything will be fine from then on, but our accepting what Jesus did for us on the cross is only the opening refrain on our journey to our eternal existence in the presence of God and Jesus.

In this broken state, we must remain with Jesus, not going off on our own with prideful zeal as the Pharisees did, proclaiming their superiority; but within this broken, and helpless state, God creates in us a humble heart capable of not just telling, but showing a lost world the riches of God’s love.

There are no great works required of us, we don’t have to teach Sunday School or go on foreign missions, but we must decide to go to and abide with Jesus.

“All that the father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” — John 6:36

Let’s call this the “great requirement.” The great requirement is that we come to Christ, and we have this assurance from our Lord that if we come to him in faith he will not brush us aside, but welcome us with his healing hands. As he touches us with his nail-scarred hands he imparts life into us, a life that will never be separated from us.

For many of us, that is the extent of our coming to Christ, as we said, we soon go on our way, but if we would just remain with Jesus this crumbled and listless life would have a meaning and purpose beyond our understanding, if only we would come to him.

In Ms. Elliott’s hymn, “Just as I am,” we see the picture of a person with nothing to offer, seemingly broken beyond repair, but what we don’t realize is that is the only way to come to Jesus.

The story behind the song is as heart wrenching as the song. Ms. Elliott’ father and brother were both notable pastors in their corner of England in the early 1800s, yet, at the time the young Charlotte didn’t share their same dedication to Christ, nevertheless, the Elliott home was a meeting place for many a traveling clergyman and quite often Ms. Elliott would engage them in conversation. One such man was Dr. Cesar Malan, of Geneva. Presumably over a meal, Dr. Malan began talking about his faith and he pointed a question to Ms. Elliott.

Ms. Elliott suffered constantly with poor health and was often in severe pain, which made her irritable at times, which may have been the case this time. In any event, she took offense to Dr. Malan’s question about her own faith. Dr. Malan offered to go no further on the subject, and told the young woman he would pray for her to give her heart to Christ and then use the talents given to her by God to enter a life of service to him.

A couple of weeks later, once again miserable, but for different reasons, Ms. Elliott came back to Dr. Milan and posed a question she had to so many pastors about how to come closer to Christ. They gave her the answer to pray more, do more good works, live a more pious life, all of which never seemed right to young Charlotte.

Dr. Malan cut through all of that when Ms. Elliott told him, “I am miserable. I want to be saved. I want to come to Jesus; but I don’t know how.”

He responded to her by saying, “You have only to come to him just as you are.”

The words penetrated the veil covering her heart and she gave her heart to Jesus on that night, but life and the world has a way of trying to tug us a way from our devotion to Christ. As noted, Ms. Elliott was practically an invalid and felt useless in her service to her savior. She often had doubts that ripped at her soul. Such was happening in her life in 1834 as those around her readied for a church bazaar, and the beautiful story is retold in Knapp’s “Who wrote our Hymns.”

"Ill health still beset her. Besides its general trying influence on the spirit, it often caused her the peculiar pain of a seeming uselessness in her life, while the circle round her was full of unresting serviceableness for God. Such a time of trial marked the year 1834, when she was 45 years old and was living in Westfield Lodge, Brighton,” the book noted.

The night before the bazaar Ms. Elliott was unable to sleep or rest. The book notes a sense that everything before her was an illusion, nothing but myths to be dispelled. Instead of giving into her thoughts and fears, with the help of the Holy Spirit, she determined to conquer the doubts. What Ms. Elliott did was write down the formula for her faith in verse form, the gospel of pardon and peace and how that “even now” she was accepted in the Beloved kingdom of her savior.

What sprang from her pen and onto the paper was the hymn “Just as I am.”

Through her sense of uselessness, the light of Christ sprang forth from her, reaching untold millions with her simple verses of testimony.

Some years later Ms. Elliott’s brother, the Rev. H.V. Elliott, noted, “In the course of a long ministry I hope I have been permitted to see some fruit of my labours; but I feel far more has been done by the single hymn of my sister’s.”

In this famous hymn, too often we only hear the first couple of verses during the invitational part of the service, as no one responds to the pastor’s invitation to come before the altar and offer a life to Christ, the song does not go on to reveal its beautiful prose to us. In the fifth stanza of the song it tells us the simplicity of the gospel of Christ.

“Just as I am — Thou wilt receive

Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;

Because thy promise I believe,

— O Lamb of God, I come!”

We too are accepted into the Beloved kingdom of our Savior if we believe on the promise fulfilled at the cross. Even though the world rejects us and spits us out, Jesus never will if we come to him — just come to him, now and for always.

A jon boat full of faith

If only Jesus disciples knew when they were with Jesus what we know now.

That statement has cropped up in my mind many times as there were so many questions I would have asked Jesus that they, as far as we know from scripture didn’t.

Today, we can read the Bible and we see Jesus, at least I hope everybody does, as the Son of God, part of the triune Godhead. The disciples, due to their narrow time with Jesus, mostly saw Jesus as a remarkable man who could do miraculous things. It is evident from scripture until Jesus walked out of the tomb and appeared to them.

There were questions, though, throughout their time with Jesus. They would see him do things and they would marvel.

“One day Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake.’ So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great dangers.

“The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Master, Master, we’re going to drown!’

“He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. ‘Where is your faith?’ he asked his disciples.

“In fear and amazement they asked one another, ‘Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.’” — Luke 8:22-25

According to Luke, the disciples had already seen Jesus raise a widow’s son from the dead, they saw him heal people with sometimes deadly infirmities, restore sight to the blind, they heard him teach; yet they still had a hard time understanding who Jesus really was. They couldn’t quite get it.

To be sure, they were scared of Jesus. Sure, Jesus was a loving and gentle man, but they saw Jesus rebuke evil spirits. They saw how scared those evil spirits were when Jesus came in their presence. They knew for a fact that Jesus wasn’t any ordinary man, but what they didn’t know was if this man was going to destroy the world — or save it.

Let’s get a little perspective here; the boats the disciples were using most likely were fishing boats. Ocean cruise lines they definitely were not. A boat from that time period would be about 27 feet long and about 7 to 8-feet wide and had a flat bottom. In modern parlance it was just a big jon boat.

Knowing this, it was understandable the disciples would be afraid out on the Sea of Galilee in such a small vessel, but they had forgotten something — Jesus was on board.

To be accurate, they hadn’t forgotten about Jesus because they did call on him to do something — he was their line of last defense.

Even though they called on Jesus, and Jesus calmed the storm, Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, but why?

It’s not that hard to understand, if we look at the entirety of their time with Jesus up to that point. As noted before, the disciples saw Jesus do things no other prophet, not even Moses, had done before. They heard Jesus’ teachings. No doubt they had one-on-one conversations with Jesus, yet they still didn’t realize that they were safe as long as he was with them. Or, let’s put it like this, they didn’t fully believe they were safe in the presence of God, as Jesus is God the Son.

That’s why Jesus scolded them. In essence Jesus was telling them, “Don’t you know who I am? I am.”

The same can be said of our lives. There will be storms, there will be times of trouble, but if we believe Jesus to be who he says he is, then there is a security for us. The raging storms and the troubles cannot drag us down to the depth of this world, for we have placed our lives, the very essence of our existence into the hands of Jesus Christ. A good example of this is Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. A devout Christian, Gen. Jackson never did anything without prayer, whether it was entering battle or going for an afternoon walk, he believed in staying in communion with God. The name “Stonewall” came from his unflinching resolve in battle. He was fearless to an extent, but it was a deep abiding faith that kept him from being paralyzed with fear.

Jackson was quoted as saying “he was as safe in bed as on the battlefield.” In other words, Gen. Jackson so believed in his abiding purpose in Jesus Christ that he was immortal until God called him home.

That was the point Jesus had with his disciples. As long as he was with them, nothing in the world could harm them — if that was His will.

So many times when we pray we ask for God’s will in our life, but I believe strongly that God’s will is God’s will, and we should seek for our lives to be lived within his perfect will. It’s an argument in semantics, but if we seek to work for God, then he will help us accomplish our goals, and there was no way Jesus’ goal for his disciples was to drown in the Sea of Galilee.

To my fellow Christians out there concerning our mortal life, God does not promise a long life, a life filled with riches or a life free from pain and sorrow, but what he promises us is life in abundance — of the eternal kind.

What does it take to get that life — faith in Jesus Christ? For those who have accepted that fact, then Jesus has a job for you to do, and cowering meekly in the corner of the boat is not it. He is telling us to, “Have faith, I’ll take care of the storms, you just keep rowing the boat.”

Keep rowing the boat my fellow workers in Christ, our time is short and there are many who still need to hear the gospel of our precious Lord, bend to the oar and push for the goal, then maybe all of us will get to go home soon.

Oh...Those legalists

Oh those legalists — if it wasn’t for the books of John, Paul and Peter and then much of the Old Testament prophets — they could impose their religious Utopia where everybody had a certain way to live, much like Geneva under the generalship of John Calvin.

In the gospel of John, the sixth chapter, something I’ve written on before, Jesus had just finished performing some great miracles, the feeding of the 5,000 and his walking on water over the Sea of Galilee.

To be sure, his followers saw these miracles and were astonished, but they still didn’t know what all Jesus was telling them.

At the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the book of Matthew, Jesus tells everybody he was there to fulfill the Law, every jot and tittle. He told them they were to be held to a higher standard of the Law, where every thought is judged — it was a standard beyond even what the Pharisees held.

So it was natural for some of Jesus’ followers to ask in John 6:28, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Ask this in many churches and the people will tell you to keep all the commandments given by God. That’s a simple answer and it would be correct, but that doesn’t save us. Even if we were sinless from now on, it doesn’t cover over the sins of the past, it doesn’t square our account with God. Then, even if it did, if a believer sins again what then will be the penalty for that sin.

Nope, Jesus gave the answer to his inquisitors that day. Jesus answered in John 6:29, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

That’s it, that’s the answer? Surely the batteries on John’s tape recorder went out that day, or maybe his stenographer took the day off — surely that can’t be it.

The thing is — it is.

When Jesus died on the cross it was an account settling sacrifice. For the people to be able to take part in this miracle, then they must first, believe in what Jesus did for them and then turn away from their life of sin. Our works gain us nothing, it is only through faith that we come to the Father through Jesus Christ.

Step back and look at this for a moment. Imagine spending all of your time worrying about it if you are living right or Hell might be waiting. You would become like the Pharisees who worked diligently day in and day out to make sure they did everything just so, even straining their soup to make sure they didn’t accidentally swallow and unclean gnat. The Pharisees falsely believed if they followed a strict formula then they could earn their salvation.

Jesus freed us from that burden — and sin is a burden, and it seems there are many who try to keep saddling us with that burden.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” — Matthew 23:13-15

God wants us free from those burdens of sin. He wants us to worship him out of love, so, he created a way in which we could do that.
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” — John 6:40

That’s reassuring, that’s a freeing of the spirit. Jesus, if we repent, takes that sin nature from us; he paid the penalty for those sins on the cross. Yes, we will commit sins even after our salvation, but if we confess them to our loving Savior they will be removed from us as far as the east is from the west.

There are many who will hold you to a standard no one can uphold. Out of the love of Christ and through the strengthening of the Holy Spirit we strive to live sinless lives, but we are still under the curse of the flesh and that is why we have a mediator between us and God the Father — our Savior Jesus Christ.

So yes, flee from sin, but don’t let the thought and fear of sin keep us from the work set before us, which is to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord above all and it is to him, and him only we owe our allegiance, not a flag, not a country — nothing but our Lord Jesus.

So, take from the words of Paul and flee from the legalism that binds you to this corrupted flesh, “The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” — Galatians 3:12-14

Live as free people, no longer under the heavy yoke of sin. As we enter another election cycle many will talk about freedom, and setting you free, but know this — there is no freedom under man as we all are under the burden of tyranny. No man, no matter how smoothly he speaks can offer us freedom — freedom only comes through Jesus Christ.

Read and let the words of the Savior pierce your heart, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

On this day, resolve to let Jesus take up your heavy load, nothing you can do will lift the burden, only the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.