Day 11: Two Great Truths to Help You in Your Spiritual Journey

Day 11: Two Great Truths to Help You in Your Spiritual Journey

“We are far worse that we ever dared to fear, and God is far better than we ever dared to hope!” These are two great truths that will help you in your spiritual journey and the renewal of your spiritual life today. These two great truths are fundamental to understanding and having a faith relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. Let’s look at each of them briefly today!

Truth #1: Man’s Sinful Nature

According to the Bible’s clear teaching on this subject, man is born in a lost spiritual condition, where he is disconnected and outside of a faith relationship with God (Romans 3:23; 6:23). In such a condition, man is still alienated from God and in rebellion and at war with God as an enemy of God (Romans 5:8; Isaiah 59:1-2). This is the condition in which man is born and in which He will die unless there is a change in man’s standing and relationship with God. The Bible defines this condition as SIN: living outside a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. The result of this condition in a person’s life is sins (plural). People who are living in SIN (outside of a faith relationship with Jesus Christ) commit sins (acts of unrighteousness, evil, and immorality). Man’s greatest need is not to overcome acts of selfishness or immorality in his life, defined as sins. Doing this will only make him or her a good moral person who may still lack a faith relationship with God and be living in SIN. Instead, man’s greatest need is to have his present condition of living in SIN changed by accepting God’s free gift of Grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 5:1; 8:1). Your greatest need and my greatest need is to have a faith relationship with God, and to live in friendship and harmony with God, instead of living in rebellion and at war. How does this happen in a person’s life? God, who is 100% holy and righteous (perfect), cannot accept anything or anyone that is not 100% holy and righteous (perfect) like He is. God cannot accept someone into Heaven who is 99.9% righteous or holy. They must be 100% righteous and holy. If man is born in SIN and in need of a faith relationship with God,  a God who is 100% holy and righteous, how can a sinful human being ever become holy and good enough to enter in a faith relationship with God? How can a sinful human being approach a holy and righteous God? Hence, the Gift.

Truth #2: God’s gift of Justification

God provided the Gift. The way or means by which man can become accepted by God, have assurance of salvation, and enter a faith relationship with God all are the result of God’s amazing Grace! It is all of God’s doing, and only man’s accepting and receiving. There isn’t anything that we can do to earn or deserve God’s Grace, but just accept it, receive it, and experience it in our hearts. It is called the “gift” five times in the Book of Romans in the New Testament, because it can only be received by faith and never earned or merited. Note the following verses:

Romans 5:15
But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

Romans 5:16
And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
 

Romans 5:17
For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
 

Romans 5:18
Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God knows that we are slow to understand this great truth, so He adds the word “free gift.” No strings attached. Man, who is born in SIN, can be accepted by God and into a saving faith relationship with Him by only by accepting the Gift of God. And what exactly is the Gift of God? Romans 6:23 says, “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Gift is having our condition before God changed from that of rebellion to that of friendship, from that of war and hostility to that of reconciliation and peace. This Gift is made possible only through Jesus Christ who came from Heaven to die in our place as our substitute for our SIN. He died in our place for all of our sins that we have ever committed. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Faith in Jesus Christ is the key that unlocks Heaven’s riches for us (Acts 16:31). Therefore, God calls it “the free gift.”

A Christian writer expresses the exchange of the gift in the following beautiful way:

“Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. "With His stripes we are healed." (Desire of Ages, p. 25)

How Great is Our God! He is without Parallel! There is No Other like Him! When a sinful person comes to God and exercises faith in Jesus Christ as Savior from Sin and Lord of their life, then God pardons their past sins and “acquits” them of all of their sins they have ever committed. That means that God not only forgives them in the sense of pardoning them for having done wrong, but he “acquits” of sin, meaning he considers them as if they had never sinned to begin with. That is called “justification” in the Bible, and the “free gift”. God not only forgives me of my sins, but he forgets about my sins, since I am now in a faith relationship with Jesus Christ, His Only Son. God can justify us and grant us this great Gift only because One as Holy and Righteous as Himself died on the Cross of Calvary for our SIN and sins. In Jesus, our sins were punished and paid for. He died in our place. Now, through faith in Jesus Christ as Our Savior and Lord, we have “peace with God (Romans 5:1) and do not have any fear or condemnation of sin (Romans 8:1). We no longer live in SIN, but live in Faith, faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior from SIN.

Conclusion

This great truth has the power to change and transform your life today. You can have peace with God today and every day if you will remember that God wants you to have the gift, the free Gift of God’s Grace.

The story is told of John Newton, the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace”, who on his deathbed was really sick and could barely talk or think out loud anymore. It was his last moments on earth before entering into the sleep of rest called death. His friends who were at his bedside accompanying Him in these last moments of His life noticed that John Newton wanted to speak and so they gathered around his bed to see what he had to say to them. They knew it must be important.

With great challenge, but with a look of peace and joy in his face, John Newton exclaimed, “My memory is almost forgotten. Yet there are two things that I know and am confident of. Number one, I am a great sinner! And number two, Jesus Christ is a Great Savior!”

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! May we be reminded of these two great truths in our life today as well, and may we receive God’s Gift of salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ.

 Practical Steps to receiving the Free Gift of God

Pray the Sinner's Prayer:

"Dear Jesus, 

I am a sinner and I cannot save myself. Thank you for dying for me on the Cross and paying for all of my sins. I accept you as my Savior and Lord today. Please come into my heart and into my life right now. Amen."

Then follow these steps to receiving Jesus and the Free Gift:

1. Believe that God loves you. John 3:16 "“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

2. Confess your sins to God. 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

3. Ask God to you repentance from SIN and sins. Acts 11:18 "When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.”

4. Invite Jesus into heart and into your life. Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me."

5. Believe that Jesus has entered into your heart and into your life. Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."

6. Have assurance of salvation. 1 John 5:11-13 "And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God."

~ Pastor Salvador Garcia