I was brought up in one of those “Jesus + ….. = Salvation” churches, and lest you consider any one particular denomination maintaining a corner on that market – they do not!  A phrase echoes in my heart from a popular animated movie (that I have watched many times with my granddaughter)—“Let it Go!”  …and it reminds me just how difficult it is to Let It Go! …particularly when it comes to adding to the requirements of salvation.

Fear of failure is so deeply ingrained within our very beings, that it seems we can’t be without a moral measure to assess our performance—and there is a measure called the law, yet if we just go by appearances, some of us come out looking pretty good.  I admit that in the past I was quite a manic-depressive Christian.  I recognize that the correct terminology for that condition is bi-polar, but that doesn’t quite project the same image as manic-depressive.  When I considered myself to be doing pretty well legally (in regards to religious requirements), I was a pretty happy Christian.  When things didn’t look so good as far as activities of devotion, or I recognized an internal imperfection (they are there though I usually choose to ignore them), I became depressed—as if my salvation depended upon me!

Over time my emotions have stabilized as I have grown in the knowledge and understanding of the cross and Christ’s resurrection.  Slowly I have begun to “get it” when it comes to the difference between my righteousness and the righteousness of Christ.  The prophet Isaiah so precisely describes our human condition:  “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6).

Scriptures give us some amazing instances of human righteousness exhibited through the religious observances and attitudes of the Pharisees, as well as the life of Saul before he became the dynamic apostle Paul—Jesus referred to them as “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.  Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27, 28).

God gives us a window into His value system through the selection of David as king of Israel, “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  Jesus clarifies, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:20-23).

As quick as we may be to deny the condition of our heart, it is best to agree with God who speaks through the prophet Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)—often we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are doing pretty good when in fact, if we are depending on our own righteousness, we are in trouble!

That is my introduction—Bad News! …however, that bad news makes the good news so much more extreme.  …which is why sometimes I just do not get it!  We are saved through God’s mercy, not our works of righteousness—“through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), we are justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law (Galatians 2:16), and we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Nothing that can separate me from God’s love, even when I am having a bad attitude day – “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he who condemns?  It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:31-35, 37-39).  People are the ones who put limitations and exclusions on God’s love, not Him; and the biggest problem with the exclusions pronounced by humans is that they are “rules” based and not Spirit-led.

Paul writes this precious promise to the church in Corinth:  “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17)—and happily, the same Holy Spirit who was at work in the creation of the world, when God spoke this planet, and the universe into existence, is the same Spirit at work in our hearts forming us into new creations!  “In Him [Jesus] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:13, 14).  Our redemption is about His work for His glory—not our work, for our glory!

Once we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, we can do nothing to “set the hook” of our salvation—it is finished.

He said so on Calvary.