"A Christian Never Is, He's Always Becoming"
With God, no one could ever be pleasing to Him based on
performance. His standard is perfection, and no goodness on our part can ever
compensate for our sins. We may please man with our actions, but "all have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). It takes the
precious blood of Jesus to do that.
After we obey the gospel by being baptized into Christ and
added to His church, the way we receive the forgiveness that's available through Jesus'
blood is by confessing our sins in faith (1 John 1:8-10). This is a very personal occurrence in the life of a Christian with God. When we put our faith in Jesus as our Savior,
we are pleasing God. Hebrews 11:6 says, "But without faith it is
impossible to please him."
Faith comes from the heart (Rom. 10:10), and God looks on
the heart — not the actions (1 Sam. 16:7). Of course, God sees our actions and
will deal with us about them, but only because they are inseparably linked to
our hearts (Prov. 23:7). It's our hearts that really concern God, and faith in
Him (trust, reliance) is what He is searching the heart for.
A person whose actions are not right but who trusts the
Lord is more pleasing to God than an individual who is doing the right things
but has no faith in God. It's not a case of those who act the best will get
accepted, and those who act the worst get rejected. That would put some of the
followers of other religions ahead of many Christians, but that is not what the
Bible teaches.
This is exactly the point Paul is making in Romans 11:6:
"And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more
grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no
more work." That's old English for saying, "It's one way or the other
but not a combination of the two." We're either saved by God's grace
through what Jesus did for us, or we're saved by what we do without Jesus, but
not a combination of the two. The choice should be the obvious.
- Learn about the nature of sins of omission, and commission -
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