WE CAN’T SAVE OURSELVES

Roman 5:11(NLT) tells us, “So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.” Through Jesus Christ, God has made us righteous because being righteous is necessary to be friends with God. Romans 3:25-26 The Message (MSG) tells us, “God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.” with Him through Jesus Christ. God loves us, and because of His great love, He offers us the extreme privilege and honor to choose to love Him back. John 3:16(NLT) says, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” When we were at our worse, God sent His only begotten Son to save us and give us eternal life. He did this because He loves us more than we can ever know. He wants to have a relationship with every living person, and His greatest delight is loving and sharing His Kingdom with us.

Because of what God accomplished through Jesus Christ, we now live in God’s “rightness”. It’s not that we are so good, God is the only One that is righteous and good. You and I don’t have any righteousness of our own. So, God gave us His righteousness through Christ. Sometimes people will say, “I’m not ready to have a relationship with God yet. I’m too worldly, too angry, too sinful, or too this or that…” Maybe they think they are enjoying themselves by doing all the things that pleasure their senses, but we were not created to live that way. We were created to walk in God’s Spirit! Only Jesus Christ can fill our cups and give us joy.

It’s a myth that we can make ourselves “okay enough” to come to God. We can’t. None of us can do this. For instance, some that have an addiction to a substance might think they’ll come to God when they give up the drugs or alcohol, but in reality, they find that the struggle never ends. They keep disappointing themselves and can’t understand why they can’t stop. Others might be very unhappy with their lives because they struggle with insecurities, anxieties, and fears. Spending most of their lives feeling lost, it’s challenging for them to believe that God wants to have a relationship with them; that He loves them in their brokenness and wants to help them. Before we come to Christ, we are all broken and in desperate need of God’s saving grace. We need to be cleansed by the blood of the lamb. We desperately need the new life that Jesus Christ offers us, and God wants to help us. All we have to do is come to Him and invite Him into our hearts.

You Must Be Born Again

In John 3:3(NLT), Jesus Christ had a conversation with a man named Nicodemus. He told him, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Just as we are birthed from our mother’s womb and have our biological father’s seed, when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ into our hearts as our Savior, we are spiritually born again. In order to be a child of God, we must be born physically, and we must be born spiritually. Accepting God’s love through Jesus Christ causes a spiritual consummation. We receive God’s seed by faith, and the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us. So, to be saved is to be born-again. It is to come alive to God spiritually as His child.

Faith is not magic, and magic doesn’t come from God. It’s not about a ‘kid in a candy store’ attitude or mentality, where God gives us anything we want. Faith is believing that God gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to save all of us, and it is believing that our all-powerful, awesome God can do anything and through His resurrection power, He raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Believing this truth, repenting from our sins, and asking God for forgiveness transfers us from eternal death to eternal life in Christ.

We’re on this earth to decide who we are going to be for the rest of eternity, and if we choose God, we must remain committed to Him. We must apologize for the sins we have committed, because sin is an offense to Him. The first man, Adam, sinned against God, and everyone after him sinned as well. As God’s children, we must reject Adam’s disobedience and surrender ourselves to God to be guided and led by Him.

In John 14:6(NLT), Jesus Christ declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” The world would like us to believe that there are many paths to get to God. Well, it’s true that there are many paths, but they lead to destruction and idolatry. Jesus Christ is the only path to our Heavenly Father, the One True Living God. If we miss this, we’ve missed life entirely.

Don’t assume that your loved ones know Jesus Christ. They may need to get to know him better, and you might be the one that God has sent to help them. Talk to your loved ones and tell them about how God set them free by giving the life of His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for our sins. Christ is the Prince of Peace and Life and through him, we can live an eternity with God. In your own life, make sure that you’ve asked Heavenly Father to forgive you for your sins. We must ask Him to come into our lives, and we must accept His love in our hearts by believing in what He has done for us all through Jesus Christ. ■

Dear Heavenly Father,

You are holy and Your name is holy. I give You all the praise, glory, and honor, because You alone are worthy. You are the great “I Am”. You are Yahweh, Creator of the entire universe. Psalm 24:1 affirms that everything in the earth, including all its people, belong to You. I come to You, Almighty God, in the most humble way that I know how. In the precious and powerful name of Jesus Christ, I ask You to please forgive me for all my sins. I have not always done the right thing. Sometimes, I didn’t know what the right thing was, and other times I did. I’m sorry, Father. I want to do better and I need Your help.

Thank You for loving us so much that You gave Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins. I accept him as my Lord and Savior. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins, and he did this willingness because he loves us all so much. I believe that You have all power in Your hands, and that You did not let Your Son stay in the grave, but You resurrected him from the dead. He is now seated at Your right hand on Your throne. Please accept me as Your child. I thank You for Your unconditional and limitless love, and I accept Your love into my heart through faith. I invite Your Holy Spirit to live inside me and to help and guide me. I give my whole life to You, Heavenly Father, and I thank You for saving me and giving me the gift of eternal life so that I can spend it with You. Thank You for the gift of salvation and for giving me new birth through Jesus Christ! He is Lord over my life. Please send those that can help me to learn and study Your Word, so that I can be like Christ in everything that I do. Thank You for Your amazing grace, for all that You have done for my life and for bringing me this far. In the powerful name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Conclusion: “In Relationship with God”

Most of us can relate to the younger son, because this is how we are. We’re an “on the double” society and we don’t want to wait. Some of us will go to God with this same impatient attitude in our prayers. The young son squandered his money, and it just happened that a famine hit the land. He was in quite the fix, no money, no family, and no one will to help him. He got hired by a country farmer to feed his pigs, but he said to himself, “the pigs eat better than me.” He remembered that his father’s servants also ate very well. He then hatched a plan to humble himself and return home to his father’s house.

One would think that his father would be angry with his son, but instead, his father rejoiced when he saw him and threw a great feast to welcome him home. This wonderful parable that Christ taught paints a beautiful portrait of our Heavenly Father’s love. God delights in us, and He wants us to delight in Him. He wants us to know that only He can fill our cups.

When two people marry, God tells us that they become one person. That’s how He sees them. Jesus Christ taught us this in Mark 10:6-9 (NLT), “6 But 'God made them male and female' from the beginning of creation. 7 'This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, 8 and the two are united into one.' Since they are no longer two but one, 9 let no one split apart what God has joined together." This very special marital union teaches us the reverence and blessing of our union with God through Christ. It’s out of our union with God that the love, unity, and strength of Christ truly ministers to the heart of the other.

God placed all these yummies in us to learn to live in relationship first with Him. When this is our reality, all of His goodness flows from us to others. God wants to spend time with us. He wants us to read about Him in His Word, and to communicate with Him all the time. This is what we desire from the people we love, and this is what God desires from us. He created relationships for His good pleasure, and everything that pleases God will please us. Jesus Christ prayed to God for the disciples in John 17:21(NLT), “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” Through Christ, we are one with our Heavenly Father. Let’s be as attentive to our relationship with Him as we possibly can, because the more we live in Him, the better our lives will be.■

Conclusion: “God Hears and Delivers”

You can’t produce something out of nothing, but many of us have missed this spiritual lesson entirely, especially those of us praying to cross paths with our future spouses. We want him to be all we hoped he would be, yet many of us are not committed to be the same for God.

God promises in Psalm 145:19 that He will grant us the desires of our hearts, and He has done this. Now, it’s our responsibility to reach out and grab what He has granted, and we can’t do that if we lack the spiritual knowledge and strength to do so. Jesus Christ is our Big Brother, and God has called us to follow his example. We’re in our Heavenly Father’s family business, and our lives must reflect that we understand this and are actively pursuing His objectives. God hears and delivers, but we must listen and receive. We must grow more intimately in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This is a relationship where we find great pleasure in talking to God. Our roots must grow deep into Christ, and this is achieved as we are obedient to God’s Word, and back our faith in Him by telling others about Christ and being a blessing to as many people that we possibly can.■

Kim Times, Minister, Writer, and Editor