SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/23/2018
10:39 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Salvation is Through Faith”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
2:8-9
Message of the verses: “8 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, so that no one may boast.”
We all live to a certain to agree by faith each day
whether believer or unbeliever. When we
drive over a bridge in our car we trust that the people who made the bridge
made it safe and when we go out to eat we trust that the food we eat will not
cause us to become sick or worse. A
thing like this causes us to demonstrate faith.
Being a member of a certain church, or being baptized, or
confirmation, or even giving to charity and also being a good neighbor have no
power to bring salvation, not even taking communion or trying to keep the Ten
Commandments, or even trying to live by the Sermon on the Mount cannot bring
salvation to us. The only thing a person
can do that will have any part in salvation is to exercise faith in what Jesus
Christ do for you.
John MacArthur writes “When we accept the finished work
of Christ on our behalf, we act by the ‘faith’ supplied by God’s ‘grace.’ That is the supreme act of human faith, the
act which, though is ours, is primarily God’s—His gift to us out of His ‘grace.’ When a person chokes or drowns and stops
breathing, there is nothing he can do.
If he ever breathes again it will be because someone else starts him
breathing. A person who is spiritually
dead cannot even make a decision of faith unless God first breathes into him
the breath of spiritual life. ‘Faith’ is
simply breathing the breath that God’s ‘grace’ supplies. Yet, the paradox is that we must exercise it
and bear the responsibility if we do not (cf. John 5:40.)” “And you are
unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”
We can be sure that human effort has
nothing to do with Salvation “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be
justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin
(Rom. 3:20).” “nevertheless knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ
Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by
faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law
no flesh will be justified (Gal. 2:16).”
So since this the truth we can be sure that what Paul wrote in Eph. 2:9 “not
as a result of works, so
that no one may boast.” He says
this because we have no part in it and if we did then we could boast, but we
don’t.
Now we cannot boast about doing
something to earn salvation, but there are good works involved and we will look
at this in our next SD.
Answer to
yesterday’s Bible question: “John the
Baptist” (Matthew 3:1-3).
Today’s Bible
question: “Which Gospel is called ‘the
Spiritual Gospel’ and ‘The Gospel of the Church’?” Answer in our next SD 12/23/2018 11:00 PM
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