Tag: works

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Galatians Devotionals

Losing our blessedness

Galatians

What then has become of your blessedness? (Galatians 3:15, ESV)

That’s a good question.

Many Christians today have lost their blessedness. Why?

They’ve forgotten who they are. And they’ve forgotten how they came to be what they are.

What do I mean?

The thing that you see time and again in this passage is Paul trying to pound into the Galatians’ heads, “You are already God’s children.”

Certain Jews were trying desperately to make these Galatians think they had to become Jews and follow the Jewish law in order to truly become “children of Abraham,” and thus, “children of God.”

But Paul says, “No. there is no difference between you and the Jews. For that matter, there is no difference between male or female, slave or free; you are all one in Christ.”

Unfortunately, however, the Galatians had bought the lie and were trying to attain by works what they had already attained by God’s grace through faith in Jesus.

And in doing so, they had lost their sense of blessedness.

They lost the blessedness that comes from a right relationship with God, just like Abraham had.  The blessedness that came to Abraham not because of anything he had done, but because of what God had promised.

More, they lost the blessedness that David talked of (and Paul quotes in Romans 4) when he said,

How joyful is the one
whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered!

How joyful is a person whom
the Lord does not charge with iniquity. (Psalm 32:1-2)

But many Christians today don’t feel that blessedness. Instead, they constantly feel condemned because of their own sins. They feel that somehow they need to work themselves out of the pit they find themselves in.

But Paul says,

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish?

After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh? (Galatians 2:2-3)

We were not saved by our own efforts to be good. We came to God confessing our weakness and inability to save ourselves.

And God in his grace poured his Spirit upon us, washing away our sins by the blood of Jesus. When he did so, the Holy Spirit cried out with our spirit, “Abba, Father!” confirming us as God’s children.

Nothing changes once we become Christians. We don’t deal with sin in our lives by our own efforts to be good. We deal with it by coming before God, confessing our weakness and inability to save ourselves. (Does this sound familiar?)

And when we do, God in his grace, continues pouring his Spirit upon us, filling us with himself, and and washing away our sins. And the Spirit confirms to us once again, we are God’s children.

We don’t have to earn our status as God’s children. We already are God’s children.

And though we struggle with sin, God will not stop working in us until we are completely remade into the image of his Son.

That’s the blessedness of a child of God.

How about you? Have you lost your blessedness?

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James

How true faith expresses itself (Part 8)

James

I think with this passage, James pretty much concludes his speech on how true faith expresses itself. And again, throughout his whole letter, he has focused on love, speech, and purity.

In these last few verses, I think he’s going back to the theme of purity and not becoming polluted by this world.

Part of that pollution is the love that people have for the things of this world. But part of that pollution is the arrogance that comes from having the things of this world.

Here we see Christians who were pretty successful in the world, successful business people and merchants. And because they were so successful, they were starting to forget their need for God. They had forgotten that all that they had ultimately came from him.

And so James says,

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

In a lot of ways, this is connected to verses 10-12.

In those verses, James asked, “Who are you that you think you have the right to judge your neighbor, to despise him by slandering him and treating him like dirt?”

Now he again asks, “Who do you think you are that you boast as you do? You’re nothing. You’re mere mist, here today and gone tomorrow. You don’t even control how much breath you have left in your life.”

So what do we get from all this? Put away your arrogance. Draw near to God and humble yourself before him.

And stop despising others. Rather, get back to what Jesus commanded and start loving your neighbor as yourself.”

James then concludes,

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do, and doesn’t do it, sins. (17)

And so we come full circle to what James said earlier in chapter 2, that faith without works is dead.

For if you are walking in arrogance, judging others with your mouth, neglecting the needs of those around you, and living in adultery with the world, do you really have faith? Or is your faith mere words, an empty shell.

What kind of faith do you have?

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James

How true faith expresses itself (Part 3)

Works vs. Faith

We said yesterday that it’s not simply enough to say, “I believe in God,” in order to be saved.

Nor, for that matter, is it enough to say “I believe that Jesus died for my sin and rose again” in order to be saved.

True faith always leads to a changed life, and that first and foremost expresses itself in love: love for God and love for others.

A “faith” that never grows to express itself in that way is not true faith at all. It’s merely empty words. As empty as saying to a needy person, “I hurt for you. God bless you,” and then walking away without doing anything to help them.

James then says,

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by what I do. (James 2:18)

It’s difficult to know how to take this verse, especially since we don’t know where the quotation marks should be. (There are no quotation marks in Greek.)

One way this could be read is that the “someone” mentioned is an outsider, a non-Christian, who looks at the so-called Christian who claims he believes in God but shows no love or compassion to those around.

And this someone is saying, “Why should I follow your God? You have your faith, but I’m a much better person than you.”

The other way it could be read is that James is that “someone” and that all those words should be in quotes.

Either way, James is saying, “Do you really have faith? Prove it. Talk’s cheap. You say that you really believe in God, but how do I know? I can’t see your heart. All I can see is your deeds.

“And your deeds, particularly your lack of love for God and others, make me seriously doubt that you really have faith in God at all. Because if you really knew God’s love, it would eventually start to flow out from your life.”

And this, I think, is how we deal with the seeming contradiction between James and Paul.

Paul says we are justified by faith apart from works (Romans 3:28). James says we are justified by faith and works. (2:24)

We are justified by God by faith alone, but we are justified (or “proven”) as true believers before people by what we do. Why? Because God can see the heart. People can’t.

The interesting thing is that James and Paul use the same person and passage to prove their points. James says,

Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. (21-22)

The question is, who was he considered righteous by? By God?

To an extent, yes. But more importantly, his outward actions proved to the people around him that he truly believed in God. They couldn’t see his heart. For all they knew, he was a total hypocrite.

In fact, his previous actions may have made them think just that.

After all, he had had so little faith earlier that he slept with his wife’s slave (with his wife’s permission) in order to have an heir.

Why? Because he had started having serious doubts that God would give him an heir through Sarah like He had promised.

But when Abraham later was willing to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, even though Isaac was the one through whom God had promised Abraham’s family line would continue, it showed everyone around that Abraham really did have true faith.

He had grown from the man who wavered and sometimes acted hypocritically into a man who truly lived out his faith.

That’s what James meant when he said,

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. (James 2:23)

When did Abraham believe God and have it credited him as righteousness. Before the sacrifice of Isaac? Or after? Well before. In fact, it was before Isaac was even born. (Genesis 15:6)

God knew his heart right then and there. He knew Abraham believed him, and so he justified him on the basis of that faith.

But that faith came to maturity and completion when Abraham put Isaac on that altar.

Like I said yesterday, maturity and completion of faith may take time. It may be a struggle, and it may be painful at times.

But where there is true faith, there will always be progress, and eventually people will be able to see it.

What kind of faith do you have?

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James

How true faith expresses itself (Part 2)

James

I think it’s easy at times to parse the Bible into neat little sections, especially as we do our daily Bible reading.

What I’ve been noticing more and more over the past year, though, is that when we do that, we often miss the flow of what is being said. So often people kind of detach these verses from all that was said before, but really, it is all part of one long argument.

And this specific argument goes back to chapter 1 verses 26-27, where James talks about how true religion, true faith, leads to love, a tongue under control, and a pure life.

More specifically, this passage is continuing James’s thought of faith expressing itself in love. Paul himself talked about this, saying,

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6)

James has been specifically talking about this in terms of how we treat the poor and lowly, and said that when we mistreat them, we are acting as sinners. We may not be committing murder or adultery, but we are nevertheless lawbreakers in God’s sight.

And so James tells us, don’t judge the poor and lowly as lesser people. Rather show mercy to them. (James 2:8-12)

He then uses this line of thought to reinforce his general point, that true religion and faith should lead to a changed life.

He says,

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him? (2:14)

Again, in the context, he’s talking about deeds of love. Can you claim to have faith if you have no love?

He then illustrates his point.

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead. (2:15-17)

Here, James shows the emptiness of words if it is not backed up by action.

If someone tells a person in need, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” it sounds good. It sounds loving. But if it never leads to action, that lack of action proves that all those words had no real meaning behind them. They’re just empty words, and not love at all.

In the same way, if someone says, “I believe in God,” it sounds pious. It sounds Christian.

But if over the course of time, that person’s life never changes, their life proves those words of faith have no meaning behind them. They’re just empty words, and not faith at all.

James emphasizes the point, saying,

You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder. (2:19)

In short, mere mental assent to the truth is not enough to save you. Merely saying, “I believe in God,” is not enough. True faith always leads to a transformed life. In particular, it leads to a life in which you truly love those around you.

Change may take time. It may be a struggle. But if there is true faith, there should always be progress.

If then you look back on your life and you can’t see any changes that God has brought about in your life, making you more mature and complete in him, then it’s time to question, “What kind of faith do I have?”

More on this tomorrow.

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Galatians

Abolishing the offense of the cross

Galatians

I mentioned not too long ago that many people find Christianity narrow-minded. They take offense at the idea that it is only through Christ’s work on the cross that we can be saved. Paul calls this, “the offense of the cross.”

And it was this offense of the cross that the Judaizers were trying to abolish, though perhaps for different reasons than the people who try to do so today.

It seems the Judaizers were most concerned with how the other Jews perceived them.

The other Jews were offended by the message of the cross because it welcomed anyone into God’s kingdom who came to Jesus by faith. No longer was circumcision or rigid obedience to the law required.

These Jews were probably offended for a couple of reasons. First, they took the Mosaic covenant and all its laws very seriously. It set them apart as God’s people.

But now, Paul was saying that through faith in Christ, and totally apart from trying to keep the law,

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

In short, the law they took such great pride in no longer set them apart as God’s special people. Rather anyone who came to God through Christ would now be declared as God’s people.

This was something the Jews simply could not accept, particularly because of their pride.

And that was the second reason they took offense at the cross: the Jews took pride in their identity as God’s chosen people.

They were proud of how much more “righteous” they were in the eyes of God than the other nations because of the law God had given to them. This despite the fact that they never could keep it perfectly.

In the same way, pride is the great barrier to people coming to Christ today. Pride in their own religion. Pride in their own “righteousness” before God.

And so for Christians to say, “Your religion is not sufficient. Your ‘righteousness’ is not sufficient,” is offensive to them.

But by clinging to these things, they don’t draw closer to God, they actually cut themselves off from God. Paul said of those who taught the need for circumcision,

The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be.

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! (Galatians 5:10,12)

Paul had said earlier that those who taught a false gospel were under God’s divine curse. (Galatians 1:8-9)

Here he repeats that, and then he gets very sarcastic and says, “If you’re going to get circumcised, you might as well go all the way and castrate yourself.”

That would have been shocking to the Judaizers because getting castrated would get them cut off from the Jewish congregation. (Deuteronomy 23:1)

But Paul was saying, that’s exactly what you’re doing if you let yourself be circumcised, you’re cutting yourself from God’s people.

That’s true of anyone that rejects the cross of Christ and tries to obtain salvation through their own religion and own righteousness. You’re cutting yourself off from God and his people.

And if you dilute the cross of Christ to please them as the Judaizers did, you risk cutting yourself off as well.

The cross is offensive to many people. But we cannot be concerned about trying to please them. We need to preach the gospel, no matter what flack we catch from people because of it.

The question you need to ask is, “Who am I trying to please? God or people?”

Remember the words of Paul who said,

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

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Galatians

Starting by faith, continuing by faith

It is so easy, especially in Japan, to fall into the trap of trying to follow “the rules” after becoming a Christian.

After all, every other group the Japanese are a part of, whether it’s a school club, a company, or even their own families have their own “rules” to follow or “obligations” to fulfill.

And so upon becoming Christians, many people try to find out, “What are the rules? What’s expected of me? Do I have to read my Bible every day? How long do I have to pray every day? How much am I expected to serve in the church?”

And if they fail to keep the rules, they start feeling guilty. They start feeling like they’re bad Christians.

What’s even worse is when other people start throwing their expectations on these new believers.

“Well, a real Christian would never drink alcohol. A real Christian would never miss church on Sunday for any reason. A real Christian needs to give 10% of their income to the church.”

That’s exactly what was happening in Galatia. The Judaizers were coming to the Galatian Christians and saying, “Well yes, you start the process of becoming a Christian by putting your faith in Jesus. But after that, you have to be circumcised.

And from that point on, you can’t be eating pork or any other ‘unclean’ foods. Don’t forget to keep the Sabbath too.”

And so on and so forth.

And these people were speaking so authoritatively, that the Galatians were buying it. So much so that Paul exclaimed,

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?

He then asked,

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? (Galatians 3:2)

And again,

Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? (Galatians 3:5)

The obvious answer was that they received the Spirit and all these blessings from God not through their own efforts to keep the law, but by simply believing the gospel that had been preached to them.

So Paul then asks,

Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? (Galatians 3:3)

In other words, we don’t just start our Christian walk by faith and then shift over into a life of keeping the rules. Rather, we continue living our whole Christian lives by faith.

Our Christian lives start by grace and they continue by grace.

We never ever reach a point where we start living by law, attempting to keep God’s rules by our own efforts. Our lives are never to come to a point where we are to focus on rules.

Instead, our lives are to focus each day on Jesus Christ. To walk closely with him each day, learning to hear his voice, and then putting our faith in him, doing the things he asks us to do.

And as we believe him and step out in that faith, he gives us the power to do what he asks. That’s the Christian life. Not keeping a bunch of rules.

So how are you living your life? Are you living your Christian life focused on the rules and doing your best to keep them?

All that will lead to is a life of guilt and condemnation, because none of us can keep them perfectly.

Focus on Jesus Christ. Learn to draw near to him. Learn to hear his voice. And learn to follow his leading.

That’s what it means to live by faith. And that’s what the Christian life is all about.

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Galatians

The main problem with a gospel of works

Galatians

Throughout this chapter, Paul has kind of been on the defensive, fighting the claims that God’s gospel of grace leads to a promotion of sin.

But here in verse 21, he goes on the offensive. He says,

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Galatians 2:21)

In short, he was saying to these Judaizers, “If we need to keep the law in order to be righteous before God, what was the point of Christ’s death? God could have just kept the old system, and Christ would not have had to come at all.

Are you telling me that God let Jesus get punched, whipped, beaten, bloodied, battered, and crucified…just to put us back under law again? That’s ridiculous!”

Yet many people hold this idea today, particularly in the cults where they say, “Yes, Jesus died for your sin, but that’s not enough to pay for your sin. You have to work for your salvation as well.”

But Paul totally debunks that view, saying, “That’s ridiculous! It is simply impossible to do enough to earn your salvation. If it were possible, God would have never sent Jesus in the first place.”

Paul’s argument also debunks the idea that Jesus is just one of many ways to God. That people can get to God through Buddhism, or Hinduism, or through one of the countless other religions in this world.

If it were possible, God would have just used those methods. Why let Jesus suffer as he did if there was another way? It makes no sense.

So let us do away with the idea that there are other ways to heaven. And let us do away with the idea that we can somehow earn God’s favor through our own works.

Jesus suffered on the cross because there was no other way for us to be made right before God. Let us never spit upon what Jesus did for us on the cross by claiming there is another way.

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Romans

Why can’t there be another way to God?

Romans

One of the things that bothers people about Christianity is that Christ claims he is the only way to God. That there is no other way. And they say, “Why can’t there be another way?”

There are many ways to answer that question, but Paul gives one answer here, as he talks about the Jews.

As I look at this passage, it strikes me that everything Paul says about the Jews, he could be saying about every other religious person in the world.

He says,

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. (Romans 9:30-31)

Let’s rephrase that into the modern world.

What then shall we say? That the Christians, who did not pursue righteousness through religious rules, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the rest of the world, who pursued righteousness through the laws of their own religion, has not attained it.

How can we say that? How can we just dismiss the efforts of all the religious people of the world?

Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. (Romans 9:32)

In other words, their whole idea of how to be made righteous before God is wrong. It’s not by works. It’s by faith.

Let’s put it this way. There’s a famous book called the “Five Love Languages.” And in it, the author makes clear that people feel love in different ways.

Some people feel love by receiving gifts, others feel love by being served, others feel love by the words they hear, and so on. And there can be conflict in a marriage when a person doesn’t know their partner’s love language.

For example, a husband tries very hard to please his wife by giving her gifts.

But though he tries very hard to give her the perfect gift, though he spends tons of money on it, he gets frustrated because she’s not responding as he expects. After all, he feels most loved when he receives gifts.

What he doesn’t know is that she doesn’t want gifts; she wants his time.

And so though he tries very hard to please his wife, because he’s going about it in the wrong way, he can never achieve his aim.

In the same way, most people approach God by thinking they have to do a lot of good works to be accepted by him.

But what they don’t realize is that while the good works are nice, that’s not what he really wants. What he really wants is for people to trust him. To have faith in him.

You see that from the very beginning in the garden of Eden.

He told Adam and Eve, “Trust me. Don’t eat from that tree. It’ll lead to your destruction.”

But they didn’t trust him, and the result was a broken relationship with God.

You see this all the way through the Bible, God telling his people, “Trust me,” and them refusing to do so.

To this day, the pattern continues.

God tells people, “Trust me. Put your faith in Jesus. He did all the work necessary for you to be saved.”

But instead, they try to pursue righteousness through their own efforts.

And so, Paul says,

They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.” (That is, Jesus). As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” (Romans 9:32-33)

How about you? Are you trying to pursue God through your own efforts?

It won’t work. God isn’t looking at your efforts. He’s looking at one thing: Do you trust him? Are you putting your faith in Jesus?

If you don’t you will fall before him. But if you do, he will accept you and you will never be put to shame.

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Romans

Salvation: gift or obligation?

Romans

In this passage, Paul takes on a very important issue. Is salvation from our sins and eternal life with God a gift from Him, or an obligation on his part to give us what we deserve?

Paul is very clear here. He says,

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.

However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. (Romans 4:4-5)

Paul couldn’t be clearer.

When a person works under contract, the boss doesn’t at the end of the month walk up to him and say, “Here’s your paycheck. Aren’t I so generous?”

And if he tried, the employee would probably be spluttering with indignation.

“What do you mean you’re generous? You’re giving me what we agreed to. I did the work you required of me. Now you have to pay me.”

But with God, that’s not the case at all. We are not forgiven of our sins and given eternal life because we keep the law. We are not made God’s children because we kept the laws God set up.

On the contrary,

Law brings wrath. (Romans 4:15)

In other words, no matter how hard we try, we fail.

We can say, “Okay, I failed this time, but from now on I’ll keep the law perfectly,” but in the end, we’ll find that we can’t keep our end of the bargain.

No matter how hard we try, we keep breaking the law and incurring its wrath.

It’s what the Israelites learned throughout the Old Testament.

And finally, God had to say (although this was his plan all along), “This Old Covenant based on law is not working because you can’t keep your end of it. So I will make up a new Covenant, not based on what you do, but on what I alone do.”

We see this in Jeremiah 31:31-34,

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD.

“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD.

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

In short, “I will no longer require you to change yourselves. I myself will change you from the inside out so that you can do what is right.

You won’t need priests to mediate between you and me. You yourself will have a relationship with me for I will completely forgive your sins, and those sins will no longer be a barrier between you and me.”

On what basis would this new covenant be based? Jesus told his disciples during his last supper with them before his death.

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28; Luke 22:19-20)

So then, salvation from our sins and a relationship with God are based not on what we do.

Based on what we do, we deserve wrath. Rather, salvation is a gift based on what Jesus did on the cross.

It was a gift that was first given to Abraham, long before the law was given. And now it is given to both Jew and Gentile who come to God on the same basis as Abraham did. By faith.

So Paul says in verse 16,

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring–not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. (Romans 4:16)

More on this next time.

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Luke Luke 18 Mark Mark 10 Matthew Matthew 19

The impossibility of salvation

The gospels

My religion professor in university brought up this story when talking about Christianity. His point? “If you want eternal life, you have to sell everything you have.”

Which shows the fallacy of not looking at a scripture in its context, because that was not Jesus’ point at all.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

It’s interesting looking at the different accounts of this story, because through them, you get a composite view of this man who came to Jesus.

He was young (Matthew 19:22), rich (all the accounts), and a ruler (Luke 18:18)

And he asked Jesus, “Good teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? And why do you ask me about what is good? No one is good except God alone.”

Here Jesus dispels one thing that many people say about Jesus. Namely, “Jesus was a good man, but he wasn’t God.”

Jesus told the young man and us, “You can call me God. Or you can call me just a man. But if you call me just a man, you cannot call me good, because only God is good.”

He then told the man, “You know the commandments. Do them, and you will find life.”

At first glance, it seems that Jesus is telling us that we can work our way into heaven. But look at what the young man said next.

All these I have kept…What do I still lack? (Matthew 19:20)

Here we see the problem of many people today. They do their best to follow God’s commands. To do what is right. Maybe, like this young man, they even think they have achieved it.

But deep in their soul, they know something is wrong. That something is lacking. Why?

Because though we may fool others and even ourselves, none of us meet God’s standard. The Bible says,

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

And if we look deeply into ourselves, we’ll realize that.

Why then, did Jesus point to the commandments as the way to life? I think the apostle Paul gives us the answer.

No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law (because no one can keep it); rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. (Romans 3:20).

The law cannot make us righteous any more than a mirror can clean our face. What the law can do is show us the sin that is there.

And through the law, we see our need for a Savior.

The problem is, sometimes the mirror can get a little blurred. Not that the law itself is blurry, but we make it blurry by our own conceptions of what it means.

And that was the problem with this young man. He was convinced that he had kept the law. So Jesus cleaned off the mirror so that the young man could see clearly. He said,

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. (Matthew 19:21)

Why did Jesus say that? Because the young man was right. He was lacking something. He had put his money ahead of God. Money was most important to him.

And by this attitude, he broke the first commandment against putting anything ahead of God in his life.

The man now saw clearly. And sadly, instead of saying, “Jesus, help me. Have mercy on me a sinner,” he walked away. He walked away sadly. But he did walk away.

And Jesus said,

How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! (Mark 10:23).

His disciples were stunned to hear this because they always had thought that people were rich because of God’s blessing. But Jesus said again,

Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:24-25).

Why? Because it is impossible to hold on to the things of God when you’re holding on to the things of this world. The rich have more things of this world to hold than most people. And more to let go of.

The disciples then asked,

Who then can be saved? (Mark 10:26).

And now we come to the key point of this entire passage. Jesus answered,

With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. (Mark 10:27).

Salvation apart from God is impossible. None of us can make it because none of us are perfect. That’s what Jesus wanted to make clear to the young man.

But because of Christ’s work on the cross, because of what God did, salvation is now possible. All we have to do is believe.

As John wrote,

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16).

Won’t you accept God’s gift of salvation today?