Christ Alone: Not By Any Work of Our Own

How often do we as believers base our relationship with God on what we do instead of what He has done? For me, it is far too often.

My human nature loves the law, but can't quite come to terms with the gospel.

When I perform well, I naturally expect God's blessing. After all, this is what the TV preachers have taught me, so it must be true.

Then, the days that I don't do so well in my walk with God I often expect less or nothing from Him.

Here is the problem: you and I (when we think as I just described) are living by works, not by grace. 

Jerry Bridges states, "We are saved by grace, but [often] we are living by the sweat of our own performance. Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to try harder. We seem to believe success in the Christian life is basically up to us: our commitment, our discipline, our zeal, with some help from God along the way."

We will never know freedom in Christ until we (by God's grace) come to the paradigm shifting realization that our standing with God was determined before the foundation of the world, and was secured through the blood of Christ on the cross.

We are "good" and our standing with God is solid because of Christ and His righteousness which has been imputed (reckoned) to us - nothing else.

Here is the bottom line: We are righteous because we are "in Christ." We are attached to Him and are therefore "o.k." with God - and we cannot improve upon that. We are wrong if we think that our standing with God depends of the work of Christ plus our works.

No other religion offers this freedom. Enjoy it, bask in it, dwell on it, worship Him because of it, live every day in light of it, and then spread the word.