Performance Driven!?!?

My Belief                                       

As I so often am, I was knee deep in a conversation about Jesus Christ and Salvation with a First Officer of mine. We had gotten all the way down to the deep nuts and bolts of it. I was telling him that it was all about Grace and not about anything you could do on your own. He was in disbelief and exclaimed to me this, “You mean to tell me that if a baby raping murderer confesses Jesus as Lord and asks for forgiveness he will be saved, but if a Buddhist monk spends his entire life in faithful service to his community but never finds Christ he will burn in HELL?!?!” My response was, “100%, ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!!!”

This is so important to understand in our Christian lives. We are on a GRACE system not a human performance system. We DID NOT get salvation because of our good performance and WE WILL NOT lose it because of our bad performance. God has given a FREE gift to each of us that will believe and call Jesus Lord. It is not of ourselves and not of our works so that NO ONE can boast before God. As I have said before if you stand before God and say it was 99% Jesus and even 1% you, then that is an absolute STRIKE OUT!. If you can say it is 1% or more your own effort than you can boast before God that you helped, did it, or at least gave it the “old college try”. God says that will never happen. Nobody will boast before almighty God. No one will take away from the FINISHED work of Jesus on the cross. We are undeserving and only God’s amazing LOVE has given us the GRACE to have relationship with him and hope for the future.

Scripture

1 Corinthians 3:11-15

¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹²If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. ¹⁴If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. ¹⁵If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

Application for Life

If you sin then you need to ask for forgiveness so you can be back in relation with God. YOU DID NOT LOSE YOUR SALVATION. All of us fall short and on our best day we don’t even come close to the perfection of Christ. Nothing measures up to the standard of Jesus. That is why the Law/Word was give…to show us how far away from the mark we are! Grace means that it is all Jesus and none you. Embrace Jesus' free gift of life and forget about yourself.