Feb 14 2009
Not under law, but under grace!
I was reading today, and the book I was reading quoted this verse. It stuck out to me, and I feel I should share it.
Romans 6:14
“Sin will not be your master, because you are not under the law but under God’s grace.” (NCV)
This verse is short, but very full. It contains basically the basis for Christianity; we are saved by grace!
We aren’t saved by good works, as many people believe. How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m sure I’ll go to heaven; I’m not a bad person”?
Yes, good works are important. God wants us to be kind to others, to help others, to treat others as we want to be treated. But that’s not what saves us. We are sinful, and God is separate from sin. No matter how good we are, we do not deserve to be in God’s Kingdom. But God wants us there, so He made a way; by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. How much God must love us for Him to sacrifice His Son! But that’s a topic for another post all in itself. . .
The first part of the verse states that sin will not be our master. Yes, we are sinful. But that will not be our death sentence! Jesus took away that sin when He died for us.
Our good deeds won’t get us a VIP pass to God’s Kingdom. We can’t buy our way in. We’ve already been paid for!
Does this mean that we can ignore God’s law, though? After all, if grace has saved us, why should we bother with all those rules? Because God said so!
Romans 3:31
“So do we destroy the law by following the way of faith? No! Faith causes us to be what the law truly wants.” (NCV)
We aren’t to disregard the Old Testament just because Jesus came. Not at all! We are still to try our best to keep to God’s law. We need to live by God’s rules. That comes out of love; if we truly love God, shouldn’t we want to live how He tells us? After all, He has our best interest in mind. He didn’t give us the Ten Commandments just because He wanted to see us struggle with them. He knows that actions have consequences, and He’s trying to protect us. If we truly love God the way He loves us, we will want to be like Him. We will want to please Him, and become closer to Him. Sin will only separate us. We need to put God before ourselves, and we do that by following the Word.
But God knows that no one can meet His standards. If the only way to heaven was to be perfect, like God, no one would ‘qualify’. Only Jesus was free of sin. So God gave us His Son so that we may have a way to heaven. The choice is up to us.
You are right, being a Christian or being good is not a gatepass to heaven. Our good deeds are just the fruit of our faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9) - “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”
In His Love,
Jem
This is the factor so many leave out when talking to unbelievers. Maybe that is because, as you said, we often forget it as believers. Being a good person won’t get us into heaven. We cannot be ‘good enough’. Our God is holy. He cannot look on any sin.
I suppose it is because we belittle our sin. We tone it down. We think it less than it is. Thank God for His grace!