Open up your hearts ♥ Open up your Bibles What Must I Do to be Saved? July 8, 2011 at 10:43am Open your hearts open your Bibles What Must I Do to be Saved? In many parts of the world there is a spiritual hunger and people are asking, What must I do to be saved? Long ago a jailer asked a religious prisoner that same question. He received a concise answer, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved you and your household (Acts 16:31). A Jewish lawyer approached the Lord Jesus Christ one day and asked, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? What shall I do to receive my allotment in the inheritance of God? What can I do to obtain Gods kind of life? The lawyer was asking an age-old question about eternal life. Is there a law that will give this kind of life? What can I do to obtain a dynamic, full, vivacious abundant life? Jesus answered by asking a question, What is written in the Law? How does it read to you? (Luke 10:26). This highly intelligent religious student replied by quoting two verses from the Old Testament. Luke quotes his response in Luke 10:27. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. You must not only love your neighbor, but you must love him as yourself. Jesus responded by saying, You have answered correctly (v. 28). Then Jesus quoted Leviticus 18:5, Do this, and you will live. You gave the right answer; now go and do it. The religious student who was talking to Jesus became very uneasy with this response and tried to change the subject. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed with conviction that he did not live up to his own interpretation of the law. He realized he was a failure. Just Do It! If you would attain to eternal life by keeping the law, then keep the law. Just do it and live. There is only one problem. Have you ever done it? Have you kept the whole law every day, every hour of your life without ever failing? MANS PROBLEM The LORD God is holy and righteous. He expects perfect holiness. 99.99% is failure in His holy eyes. James 2:10 says, For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. We have all gotten an F on our spiritual report card. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:10). The Apostle Paul summarized the first two chapters of his indictment to all mankind with these words from the Psalmist, There is none righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10). Moreover, the Bible is clear when it says that to be saved by keeping the law requires that a person keep the whole law perfectly, all the time. No exception is allowed. The law must be kept, all of it, without any omission, or failures, or exceptions, all of the time, twenty-four hours a day, all of your life. Only one person has ever kept the law perfectly. Jesus Christ the Son of God was without sin. He never personally experienced sin. His heavenly Father declared three times, This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. No one is saved by law keeping Romans 3:20 can not be any clearer. By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His [Gods] sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Sinful man can not live up to the holy demands of Gods law. No one is righteous in the eyes of God. Again, Paul gives a summary statement when he writes, There is no distinction; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:22-23). The purpose of the law was to reveal sin. Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (v. 20). The law brings knowledge and conviction of sin. Paul adds, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, You shall not covet (7:7). In another letter he wrote, But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin (Galatians 3:22). It locked us up in prison and threw the key away. The law was never intended to be a means of salvation for anyone. Its purpose was to point out our weakness and failures and lead us to Christ so we would put our faith in Him to save us. Everyone has sinned in Gods sight. There are no exceptions. All are without merit in His presence. There is no difference between the immoral, the self–righteous or the religious person. Why? All have personally sinned because to break the law in even one small point is to become guilty of all. If you have broken the law, ever so slightly, you have broken the law completely and are guilty. Therefore, all have fallen short of Gods expectations. The apostle Paul has taken pains to define and explain the fact of universal sin in Romans chapters one and two. Our personal sins give evidence to the fact that no one measures up to the righteousness of God. Everyone comes up short without the glory of God. Gods glory is the measure of His righteousness. We are lacking in divine righteousness, and are therefore, void of His glory. Martin Luther said, Men are altogether without any virtue in which they might glory. All mankind has universally fallen short of Gods glory. Man lacks the righteousness that God demands and is qualified as sinful. Gods penalty for unrighteousness God has revealed His wrath against all sinners. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). In fact, we are storing up the wrath of God on our part for judgment day (2:5). We cant blame God or anyone else because we are the ones who are guilty. God has given us up to fulfil our sinful pleasures (1:18-32). He has given us up to self-destruction. We are worthy of death (1:32). The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We are without excuse (2:1). We are all under sin (3:9, 23; 5:8), and are all guilty before God (3:19). We are accountable to God for our attitudes and actions. It is a fair statement that we are all enemies of God (5:10). Man in his sinful state is hostile to God. He is a rebel at heart. The wrath of God is His settled opposition to all that is evil. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. It is His very nature to be opposed to all evil. God abhors evil. He hates evil. God is opposed to sin. Sin separates God and man and causes enmity. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36). However, the good news is that Gods holy wrath against sin is satisfied buy the sacrifice of Christ on the sinners behalf. Throughout recorded history man has tried to build bridges to God by means of good works. All of his bridges have ended in failure. What must I do to inherit eternal life? becomes How in the world can I do it? I cant. All that sinful man can do is come and cast himself upon the mercy of God. God be merciful to me a sinner!
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 02:34:18 +0000
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