Only Christ Saves!

June 11, 2014

If penance can save you, Christ died for nothing.

If our works can save us, Christ died for nothing.

We’ve already earned the death penalty; our obedience can’t save us… so what should our response be to having our sins taken away by Christ’s death? Should it be to just casually accept that sacrifice and keep on living in the sins that CAUSED his DEATH?

What should our response be to having offended God and having caused Christ to die for our sins? More sin? God forbid.

God wants a broken and contrite spirit and obedience because only then do we show him proper respect and awe. What are our spirits and hearts broken about? Having broken God’s law… sinning. Changed lives show the fruits of repentance. It’s not law keeping that will put us in jail and it’s not keeping God’s law that enslaves us. Breaking man’s laws is what puts us in jail and it’s sin  that enslaves us!

Christ is the door. We won’t get into God’s Kingdom without going through him, accepting him as our Savior. There’s no other way. If Christ and God the Father do not deserve our awe and obedience after all they’ve done for us, then nobody deserves any respect.

All of our obedience won’t save us, but to go on living in the very sin that caused Christ’s death will keep you out of God’s Kingdom. The purpose of the law is to define sin; the law can’t save us, only Christ’s sacrifice can reconcile us to God the Father and only Christ’s life in us can save us. If you want to know how to live, look at how Christ lived. We are told to follow in his footsteps. He did not come to destroy the law, He came to magnify it.  He said it’s sin to even think wrong thoughts… like lusting after someone or hating someone. We don’t have a chance of making it into God’s Kingdom without Christ’s sacrifice and God’s grace; none of us can boast about how righteous we are.

It is only by the grace of God that anyone of us will be in God’s Kingdom.

~Mary Jo Jackson