By God’s grace we are save “For it is by free grace that you are saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves but it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). God has saved you by His grace. There is nothing you can do to save yourself. Good works and well thought out deeds will not purchase a place for you in heaven. Those who have learned this truth have great peace, because they know salvation has nothing to do with themselves, and all to do with God’s Son. Faith is the only requirement Those who become anxious in their relationship with the Lord often believe they can somehow disappoint Him, thus receiving eternal punishment. In talking at the woman in the well, Jesus made a remarkably freeing statement: “An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers” (John 4:23). There was nothing this woman can do to change her past. Yet when Jesus came to her, He did not place before her a list of conditions by which she would be saved. The only requirement was faith in Him as God’s Son and her living Lord. The Holy Spirit indwells as a deposit When you accept Christ as your savior, He sends His Holy Spirit as a deposit of His grace. The Christian life is much more than a patchwork of unstable hopes and restless dreams. You can be sure of your eternal future. There are no erasure marks in heaven—no names in the Lamb’s Book of Life with a line crossed through them.The indwelling Spirit is a source of full and everlasting satisfaction and life (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The Spiritual blessings in Christ The apostle Paul’s epistle at Ephesus states the Spiritual blessings we received the moment we are in Jesus: “In Christ we are blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless on His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One he loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring together all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to His plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:3-14). All of the above blessings are ours to claim if we are truly obedient and faithful to the teachings of Christ Jesus. The Gospel Letter Ministry
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 23:56:42 +0000
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