ONE MORE WRUNG

Friends, this is a poem I started last March after reading a
transcript of the radio program Proclaim! (a ministry of MBI)
and an Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, in which
I attempted to express the supreme foolishness of forsaking
the Cross-sacrifice of Christ to secure our eternal salvation,
opting instead for striving after perfection, a self-made saint,
which ALWAYS leads one to proclaim, “I did it my way.”
Well, for the time being this is finished; hope you will enjoy.
___________________________________________

PROCLAIM!

Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have
done in righteousness, but according to His mercy.” I’ll stop there.
The point Paul is saying there is it’s not what we do, but what He’s
done, and it’s His righteousness, and then the passage to me that
is the clearest Pauline passage of course is Ephesians 2:8, 9, and 10.
Many of us know 8 and 9, “For by grace you have been saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of
works. Why? So that no one can boast.” So a couple things there, it’s
grace, it’s faith, not what we contribute, but we’re believing in Him,
but listen to verse 10,

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work.”

___________________________________________

Titus 3:5
“He saved us, not on the basis of deeds
which we have done in righteousness,
but according to His mercy.”

ONE MORE WRUNG

One more good deed
Ought to be enough,
To give God the glory
And show Him my love.

 One more bootstrap
Should hold my place,
And help me stand
In His amazing grace.

One more bulls-eye
Will do the job,
And tell the world I’m
Good enough for God.

Just one more wrung
On this ladder up to Heaven,
Will prove to God my love
Does not need His redemption.

JeffreePollock
July 19, 2008

“For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith – and this not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
_______________________________________

“Faith is trusting in someone to do for you what you cannot do
for yourself. Faith is believing in the person and work of Jesus
Christ to take care of all your sin problems, because you’re on
that freight train going to hell with no conductor, no brake, and
it’s going out of control. No one can stop that train. Jesus says,
“If you don’t believe in Me, you will die in your sins, and I’m
going to go away, and you’re not going to find Me,
so you better believe Me while I’m here,” 
Dr. Michael Easley
___________________________________________

Romans 11:6
And if by grace, then it is no longer by works;
if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
_______________________________________

LUKE 14:28
For which of you, intending to build a tower,
does not sit down first, and count the cost,
to see whether he has the means to finish it? 

BUILDING FOR ETERNITY

 Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost
which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in
Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and
hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane,
and the onslaught at Calvary – the pivot upon which the
whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted
the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say - 
“This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”  

 The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26,
27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in
His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done
everything. “If any man come to Me, and hate not…he cannot be
My disciple.” Our Lord implies that the only men and women He
will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him per-
sonally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest
ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going
to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the founda-
tion of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of
tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for
God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can
never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises,
His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right
to claim where he shall be put.

MY
UTMOST
FOR HIS HIGHEST
Oswald Chambers

  –

Thanks Deb! Have you checked out Kirk’s website?

www.wayofthemaster.com/goodperson.shtml 

–

Why Can’t I Just Be a Good Person?
Michael Ramsden

“People are basically good,” writes one poet. “It is only their behavior
that lets them down.”

It is remarkable to think there are many today who believe they are
good enough to get into heaven.  Perhaps there is so much bad news
about others that they conclude by comparison they are superior,
and thus, deserving of a place in eternity.  But then it is even more
remarkable that when Christians claim they know they are going to
heaven, they are regarded as being conceited, boastful, and arrogant. 
People immediately ask: How can they think that they are better than everyone else? 

The fact that the same person can think of himself as superior to
others, while at the same time criticizing Christians for arrogance,
underlines one of the effects of living in a postmodern world. 
Though the contradiction is frustrating, Christians need to be able
to respond coherently to the questions at hand:  Why can’t I just be
a good person?  Isn’t it unfair of God to say that you can’t get into
heaven unless you believe in Him, even though you have been a
good person? Who does He think He is?

Jesus was once asked a similar question by a group of inquirers:
“What must we do to do the works God requires?” (John 6:28). 
Interestingly, the question was posed in plural form; it seems they
were looking for a list of good things to do.  But Jesus replied in
the singular, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has
sent” (6:29). Of course, in the minds of those who feel they have
lived a good life, Christ’s answer will not go unchallenged.  What
makes belief so special?  Surely what we do is far more important
than what we believe. How can a good person, who is not a
Christian, be denied access on the basis of belief?

The difficulty here lies in the assumption that is being made in each
of these questions–namely, that there is such a thing as a good
person.  Jesus again offers further clarification in the form of
question and answer.  He was once asked, “Good teacher, what
must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18).  The theory of the
questioner was clear:

Jesus is a good person; good people go to heaven, so what must
I do to be in the same group?  But Jesus’s reply was surprising. 
“Why do you call me good?” he asked (18:19).  He then answered
his own question: “No one is good–except God alone.”

The simple truth is that the issue is not about good people not
getting into heaven.  Alas, the problem is much worse!  Jesus seems
to define goodness in terms of being like God, and on that basis
there are no good people anywhere.  Thus, the real question is not
about who is good enough to get in to heaven.  The real question is
how God makes it possible for anyone to get in at all.  The answer
is that we need to be forgiven, and that forgiveness is won for us
through the Cross.(1)

In fact, this is precisely why the Gospel is called Good News, and
why we do well to declare it.  The good news is that getting into
heaven is first and foremost about forgiveness.  The Christian
testimony is, in fact, far from arrogant!  Christians can be sure that
they are going to heaven, not because they are good, but because
they have received forgiveness by believing in Christ. 

In other words, if we will trust in and rely on Jesus–his promises,
his person, his life, death, and resurrection–we can be sure that
we are saved.  Christians are not good people because they live
morally superior lives to everyone else.  They have been made
“good” in God’s eyes because Christ has made forgiveness
possible–because Christ has extended his own righteousness
to those who will believe. Good people will certainly go to heaven. 
However, the path to goodness lies not in religious observances
or respectable acts, but in the forgiveness of a good God, given
to us through the Cross of Christ.

Michael Ramsden is European director of Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries in the United Kingdom.

(1) For further reading on this subject, I recommend The Cross of
Christ by John Stott. 
———————————————————

Copyright (c) 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM)
“A Slice of Infinity” is aimed at reaching into the culture with words
of challenge, words of truth, and words of hope.   www.rzim.org

–

Grace In Others

In the last two messages, we’ve considered the grace of God in our Salvation as well as in our daily Christian walk. Anytime we add requirements to faith, we have strayed from the true gospel message. We certainly need to be challenged as to what faith really means and how a saving faith will manifest itself in our life, but we must never walk away from Salvation by grace through faith alone.

Galatians 1:6-8

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!”

This is a serious call…one we cannot ignore. We are challenged in the strongest of terms to continue walking according to the true gospel.

We usually begin this walk by focusing on our own life. We slowly take our eyes off of what we can do and look more upon what Christ has already done; “He must become greater, I must become less” (John 3:30). But there remains another step we must begin to take. This important step is to recognize that the grace which pulled us out of the slimy pit and set our feet on solid ground (Psalm 40:2) is the same grace which works in the life of others. We know we can do nothing to earn or add to our Salvation, but how often do we place “requirements” on those around us?

How often do we inadvertently create lists of what a true Christian must do? True Christians must dress and talk a certain way, listen to an approved list of music, watch an approved list of movies, and drink an approved list of beverages. Our churches tend to have lists which can include quality of clothing, length of hair, style of worship music, or involvement in certain “sins” about which the Bible is silent. Sure there are extremes in every category which are clearly outside the will of God; but there is a wide range which, though it may make us uncomfortable, belongs to the grace of God. Our walk with God begins with His grace and must continue by His grace.

We must all strive to follow Christ in a completely surrendered obedience; but in walking down this path, we must never pull anyone from the true gospel by requiring obedience to our list. We are saved by grace through faith and faith alone – and “we” includes ALL our Brothers and Sisters who have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. Let’s follow hard in His grace and diligently seek to recognize God’s transforming power at work as He continues to pour out His grace in others.

Steve Troxel

God’s Daily Word Ministries

 

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1