“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17, ESV)
Martin Luther worked at being righteous.
He confessed his sins until he wore out the patience of his confessors. He performed acts of penance. He had given himself to a life of monasticism. He studied and taught the Bible on the highest level. Yet he knew that he was not righteous. It was as he studied and thought about the message of Romans 1:17 that he saw the truth that liberated him, and millions in who followed behind him. The righteousness that Luther sought and that we all need is not something that we produce or earn, rather it is a gift from God that we must receive (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is received by faith.
It has been said that there are two kinds of religion in the world, the kind where we bring something in our hands to trade for favor with God and the kind where we come empty handed as beggars.
It is wonderful that God gives us what we need, because we can never earn it. Five-hundred years ago a troubled German Monk found piece based on that truth. Have you found it?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:16–18, ESV)
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ReplyDeleteMy friend Tim reminds us of C. S. Lewis's words. "[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you." C. S. Lewis
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