Our homework was to read Acts 4. It talks about Abraham being our father – the father of all who believe in God. Why would this be so? Because it was Abraham's belief, apart from works, that God counted as making him righteous.
“Without weakening in his faith, he (Abraham) faced the fact that his body was as good as dead . . . yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God (that he would have a son) . . . being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised.” (Acts 4: 19-21)
Beth shares her story:
She grew up believing that a person’s goodness is what pleases God most. By the time she was in early adulthood, she figured she already had so many acts of unrighteousness credited to her account that it would take the rest of her life of living a perfect life to tip the scale towards God’s approval. She compares our life like a team coming out on the basketball court to begin a new game and the scoreboard beginning with our previous losing score, 0-45.
This is how many of us live, feeling defeated before we begin, but the good news is that faith today still overrides all the good works we aspire to do.
"The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness – for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” (vs. 23 -24)
This is it in a nutshell. Upon further study we find that true faith leads to works, but works alone can leave us feeling mostly defeated or proud - should we think that we can earn our way. Right standing comes by the grace of God, by believing, as Abraham did.
8 comments:
It's amazing how much God does for us. Grace and Peace and he's the one who opens the door of Faith for us. So thankful.
Our works come from a heart of gratefulness and love for all He has done for us. Not, as you say, an effort to earn grace. I can't imagine the feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness that would result from a mindset of working one's way into God's favor. So glad our God doesn't work that way! :-)
His mercy - NOT giving us what we do deserve and His grace - giving us what we DON'T deserve, has always truly amazed me. I come from a similar background of teaching as did Beth. His awesome LOVE helped me to correct this wrong thinking! Great post!
Great lesson on faith and grace.
A gift...not a reward. Amazing grace!
How true - I love that God never shakes HIs finger at us saying "What's the matter with you? Didn't you learn your lesson last time?" He is consistently gracious and forgives us as though we'd never before sinned.
This is the exactly the stuggle that my teenager is dealing with - trying to do enough good, but missing the whole concept of freedom in Christ. If you have any other ideas of how I can explain it to him, let me know.
Lorrie... freedom in Christ is a difficult concept to understand, even for us as adults. Our freedom lies in the fact that Christ took the punishment for us because we could never live up to the law.(the 10 commandments - which end up being there to show us our sin and our need) Knowing that our salvation was purchased by His death, should then cause us to want to do good out of gratitude. I would say that as a teenager I sure did not truly get that... it could also lead one to come to the conclusion that if God forgives, then I can always ask for forgivenss later . . . which only shows that we are not led by the Holy Spirit. Romans 6 :1,2 and 8:9 clarifies that.
God sees your son's heart and I believe He is honored by the fact that he desires to do good.
Paul writes, "Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil." Romans 16:19
The best gifts you can give him is to model grace to him and to pray for him.
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