A Free Gift from The King: Part 3

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. -Ephesians 2:9, The New Testament (NLT version)

In the last post I did my best to explain simply and quickly how it is that we are saved from death. That it is because of our faith that God gives us the free gift of salvation, forgiving us our sins and making us new. Like I said, I can say that with all confidence. I stake my life on it.

What I didn't talk about in the last post is the debate about how "good works" fit into the picture. These would be considered the actions that make us "good people"; freely giving what we have to offer and practicing the virtues (patience, humility, love, kindness, etc). Honestly, this isn't what I want to talk about in this post, so I'm going to give my opinion with scripture and leave it at that for now so we can move on. I just think its a bit neglectful to write on justification by faith without talking about works.

I believe that "good works" are the result of your love for Christ. They are the fruits of being a Christ-follower, not the qualifications, because as I have been trying to explain, there is no way we "qualify" for God's grace by our actions. Salvation and good works to me go hand-in-hand, they cannot be separated. When you love God you want to do good works because you know it makes God happy and that in turn makes you happy. I don't want to say it's always the most natural thing to do, but every time we put away our own desires to help someone else we spiritually grow into more mature followers.

"And since it is through God's kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God's work  would not be what it really is - free and undeserved."

Romans 11: 5-7

"What good is it dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, "Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well" - but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless."

James 2: 14-17

What I really want to discuss is how we lose our salvation. Actually, I don't want to even talk about the "how" part. I want to talk about the "we" part. I get this sense every once in awhile that Christians have this image of God coming down from Heaven with a fiery fist and taking the gift of their salvation away from them when they take a hard spiritual fall. Frankly, this just hasn't sat well with me, and I didn't figure out why until a little awhile ago.

God cannot be untrue to Himself. He will follow through with everything He has decreed because He is truth. He cannot be contrary. This is why He goes to the effort of creating covenants with us and why He had to give His son to save us from death, instead of just wiggling a finger and making the price of sin a life lived out with turkeys instead of eternal death. God is truth.

Therefore, God will not come down and take away salvation from you because you screwed up. Why? because God has given us a gift - a thing given willingly to someone without payment. Furthermore, He has told us that we are completely underserving of that gift, there is nothing we could do to deserve it.

Therefore, if salvation is a gift and there was nothing you could do to deserve it, then there is nothing you could do that could warrant God taking it away from you. First, because you don't take back a gift - otherwise it wouldn't be a gift. Secondly because if you didn't deserve it in the first place you can't really sink any lower, can you? Rest assured, it will not be God that causes you to lose your salvation.

However, let me be clear that you can lose your salvation. The operative word in that sentence is "lose" mind you. I am confident that God will not take the gift of salvation from you. However, once someone gives you a gift, they trust you to look after it and take care of it. If you lose that gift you're out of luck. This is how people lose their salvation. They might set it down for a bit and forget where they left it. They may lock it up and try to forget about it. They might let someone else take it away from them or they might drop it somewhere due to carelessness. Some have even sold it for material things.

You need to carry your salvation with you all of the time. You need to do maintenance on it and you need to be thankful that you have such a gift. As I was trying to illustrate in the allegory, if the King calls you home and you don't have the keys (the gift of salvation) on you, you're not going to be able to get in.

So you see, I'm very confident that you and you alone are responsible for the free gift that God gives you. He won't take it away. He loves you! He desperately wants you to be with Him. He has made you right in His eyes by the death of his son and has adopted you into the family. Of course He's not going to determine you're a moron undeserving of salvation because you made a mistake! When He sees you've lost your gift He cries and desperately wants you to go back and look for it, to find it again, polish it up, wear it with humility and talk to Him. He is your Father. He wants to do good things for you if you would accept His gift, look after it, and be ready to come home when He calls.

And we never know when that call is going to come.

A Free Gift from The King: Part 2

It's easy to get caught up in abstract and complicated ideas when it comes to theology. Sometimes I worry that I spend too much time debating the abstract and not enough time brushing up on the basics. I also worry about how people on the outside interpret the Christian faith. I fear that some have the impression of a people bound by rules and doctrines, who are constantly striving to be good enough while simultaneously telling others that they are not good enough. If this is how you view Christians I sincerely apologize. That is why I want to talk about what I consider to be a basic tenet of being a Christ-follower that I think some non-Christians would be surprised to learn about.

The little story I made up about the young, rebellious prince and the loving King in the last post, A Free Gift from The King Part 1, is an allegory to help explain this tenet. It's something we call "justification by faith alone".  You may also hear it paraphrased as "sola fide" - by faith alone. 

I'm going to be blunt here. Have you ever spoken to someone who has told you that in order to qualify for entrance into heaven you need to accomplish so many good deeds, dress a certain way, give a determined amount of money, be perfect, have never made a mistake, etc? They might have made it out to sound like a spiritual scavenger hunt or they may have made you feel like unless you start caring for children on the streets of Calcutta you are screwed.

I'm going to tell you with complete confidence that they could not be farther from the truth. If they truly believe they can earn their way into Heaven then they have totally missed the boat and I would be concerned that they are oblivious to the fact that they are drowning. There is nothing you can do to earn your way into Heaven. I can say this with confidence because New Testament authors take pages to try and explain this.

"Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in Him is declared right with God - something the law of Moses could never do."

Acts 13:38, The New Testament (NLT version)

The Law of Moses was the rules that governed every aspect of Jewish life. Following these laws was considered necessary to be right with God. They included rules on what you could eat and not eat, how you planted your crops, how many tassels could be on your cloak, how you made tools and even how you had to deal with bodily functions like menustruation. Does this list of requirements sound vaguely familiar? The predominant-must-always-do-to-make-God-happy was the blood sacrifice of a pure and clean animal (often a sweet cuddly-wuddly little lamb). It was nuts! It was basically impossible to follow all of these laws to a T. Everyone who realized this was majorly stressed out as they did their best to check off everything on their scavenger hunt list. Then there were these guys called Pharisees who liked to go around pretending that all of these laws were totally reasonable and that they nailed every one of them all the time (they were lying) and that if they could do it, you should be able to do it too. 

But the regular folk were realizing that nothing they did was good enough to gain favour with God. Being stressed and preoccupied with all of these laws wore down the people and I think that over time they forgot how much God loved them. That's why they weren't really on their toes when God sent his son, Jesus (our Saviour, Messiah, the promised one - that's right, for years God promised that He would make everything right). Jesus is the definition of awesome and because the Bible does a far better job telling about his life with us than I could I will just cut to the chase. 

Ultimately, God loved us so much that he wanted to be right with his people forever without all the stressful scavenger hunts and bloody baby sheep. But if you've watched the news lately you'd have to admit that generally speaking our species is a pretty messed up bunch and it would take a big heaping sacrifice of purity to make up for all of that.  So God sent his only son, Jesus, to die like a sacrificial lamb so that any one of us who believes in him would no longer be chained to a rule book and dead sheep, but would instead be justified with God, even though they had done nothing to deserve it. 

"Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confidant hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God's condemnation."

Romans 5:1-9, The New Testament (NLT version)

That's pretty much the best part but if you stay tuned I have a few more thoughts on the subject. . .

Oh the sacrificial cuteness.

A Free Gift from The King: Part 1

Once upon a time, in a beautiful kingdom, there was a young prince who was not particularly well-behaved. He was rude to the servants, brushed off his responsibilities, was always late and made fun of the disfigured. He didn't care too much about his title or his kingdom because he had older brothers and sisters who were all very responsible and who would inherit the kingdom. He would never have the glory or the riches that came with being a king. In fact he hardly ever bothered to speak to his father the King and he pretty much figured that his father didn't give a hoot about him or what he did.

Until one day, while he was relaxing under a tree, pondering what to do with all of his spare time he thought he heard his father calling for him. He ignored the call at first, annoyed that he should be bothered. Then after awhile he began to wonder what the old man wanted. It felt as though he hadn't seen his father in ages. With a sigh he got up and went to look for his father. He wasn't in the throne room. The Prince felt like giving up the search right then. After all, if it was so important, his father should just come and tell him so. But just then he met his older sister who said she could show him where to find their father. Why not? thought the Prince, I was bored anyway. He let his sister guide him out into the Royal Garden. She pointed him in the direction of their father who the young Prince could now see sitting on an ornate bench surrounded by vines with huge blossoming golden flowers. In the King's lap was a small mirrored box, reflecting rays of sun onto his father's aged face. The King turned then, and seeing his son in the garden he ran to his son, laughing and holding him in a warm embrace. The Prince was a bit stunned - he didn't remember his Father being so loving or so full of joy.

"Come son, sit beside me here in the garden, I want to speak to you," said the King as he motioned the Prince to sit on the bench to his right. "Son, let's not beat around the bush," said the King. I love you. I love you more than you could ever imagine and it has broken my heart not to have you near me. I want to give you the most valuable thing I have. I want to give you the keys to the Kingdom. I want you to rule by my side." The King handed the little mirrored box to the young Prince.

The Prince was absolutely stunned. He had come to the garden expecting to maybe just catch up with the old man, probably get scolded at worst. However, now his father wanted him, the least deserving of the family to inherit the Kingdom. This must be a joke, he thought. He caught his reflection in the top of the mirrored box and for the first time he really saw himself clearly and he was saddened by how he was living.

"Father, you've got to be kidding me. You must not have any idea of what I have done," said the Prince.

"Sure I do," said the King. You've lied and cheated, you've been selfish, prideful and rude, you've been lustful, crude, uncaring. You've been petty and you've held hate in your heart. You have hurt others and you have disrespected even me. I know you don't deserve what I'm giving you, but frankly, there's nothing you could have done to deserve a gift this awesome. I hate what you have done in the past, but I love you and I can forgive everything you've done. All you have to do is accept my gift to you. I promise you that I mean it son. I. love. you. Do you believe me?"

The Prince was amazed that this was happening to him, but his father was speaking with such sincerity and such overwhelming love that the Prince knew he was speaking the truth.
"Yes father, I believe you. I will accept the keys to the Kingdom. But father, please, I have not learned how to live like a good son and prince. If it pleases you, allow me to leave the kingdom and travel to the far, far away places where I can meet people and learn how to be a good servant so that I will return knowing how to be a good ruler. I want to tell everyone I meet along the way of the wonderful gift you have given me."

The King pondered this for a moment. "Son, that is a very honourable request. The keys to the Kingdom are yours and they are freely given to you. I will never seek to take them away from you. Hold them close to your heart and through them you and I will always be able to hear and speak to each other. However, when you venture into the far, far away lands you will encounter many dangers. If you lack vigilance you may lose the keys, or there may be people who would seek to take them from you. Remember too that the farther away you are from the Kingdom the heavier the keys become and you may become tired and stumble. Above all things, remember that the day will come when I will summon you back to the Kingdom. If you arrive at the gates without the keys you will be locked out forever, stuck wandering the far, far away lands. Please son, be careful. You belong here with me."

So the Prince set out to learn how to lead by serving others. Even though he traveled in joy and faith he was beset by some troubles in the far, far away lands. But that is a story for another time. . .

The End.