This is one of the most important blogs I’ve written. I’ve written a lot lately about the Unleavened Bread of our Master. Though we know His blood redeems us and it’s his LIFE that saves us, I urge you to also focus on saying it is HIS life that saves us. Still too many believers act as if they are their own savior, that it’s all up to them. We must focus on HIM as our Savior. HE is the captain of our salvation. He is the One who is working in us to save us. If you read the oft quoted verse in Philippians 2:12 to “work out your own salvation”, be sure to read verse 13 also: “For it is GOD who works in you, both to will and to do according to HIS good pleasure.”
We are saved by grace, HIS grace; not by our works. And that salvation, that grace, are free gifts. But “free” in this case should never be read as “cheap”. There was nothing cheap about what Yeshua, the son of God, went through for you and me, culminating in his tortured death on the cross. But neither is it still grace, or a gift, if it’s of works. Romans 11:6 is clear on that.
Read Eph 2:8-10 which gives the balance:
Ephesians 2:8-10
For BY GRACE you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; IT istheGIFT OF GOD, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are HIS workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Have you read that slowly several times? Do you earn salvation and eternal life? Is salvation by works, or is it God’s GIFT? Too many still speak of “making it” into God’s kingdom and miss that we are part of the body of Yeshua. As part of His body, as being ‘IN him”, if we remain in Him we will always be where He is. Otherwise we’re not “in him”. I think that’s so basic, and so clear, and yet too many still try to be their own Savior or beget themselves into their own new creation. We are a new creation. But I’m not the Creator of the first or new creation. There’s but one Creator of all things, and it’s neither you nor I. Are you getting it? Nor is there more than one Savior. There’s only one name by which we may be saved, and that name is Jesus – or I use his Hebrew name “Yeshua”.
So accept HIS life, His gift and His saving grace. If it were up to us, then we have something to boast about (Eph 2:9). Everything is supposed to be for HIS glory, not ours (1 Cor 1:30-31).
Now I love the balance given in Ephesians 2:8-10. Once we are given a gift, we are to put it to good use, doing good works as verse 10 says. In the parable of the pounds and talents, the man who buried his gift or talent (an amount of money) ended up in trouble. He was supposed to use the gift given him.
But remember: we are saved by grace (Eph 2:8-9), and rewarded by our works. Too many are still confusing the two. Salvation is a free gift. Eternal life is God’s free gift (read Rom 6:23). But what rewards you will be given in the resurrection will depend on your works, for He will “reward each man according to his work” (Rev. 22:12). I say again: the “reward” is not eternal life or salvation. The reward is what is given as an extra bonus for having used His gifts well.
Now back to the point that we are saved by HIS life.