My Trust is In the Lord

One thing the devil likes to do is destroy our joy. Jesus said the devil seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. He seeks to steal our peace, kill our joy, and destroy our faith. One way he does this is try to convince us that we have lost our salvation (or he tries to convince us that we were not saved to begin with).  However, the Bible tells us differently.             When the devil tried to test my faith, the Lord comforted me. He reminded me about Ephesians 2:8-10. We are saved by grace through faith and not of works nor of ourselves. It is the gift of God. What that means to me is that since I didn’t do anything to save myself; I can’t do anything to lose my salvation.
            When Jesus died, He indeed paid it all. He lived for me the life I could not live and died for me the death I could not die. When I put my trust in Him, God accredited to me the life that Christ live and placed upon Him my sins. When God sees me, He doesn’t see me but Christ. He sees the life Christ lived not the life I live. That doesn’t mean that God is ignorant of what I do. It means that He doesn’t hold what I do against me because Jesus already paid the penalty. Yet, fellowship with God is broken because of our sin; however, when we repent and ask God for forgiveness, fellowship can be restored.
            God then reminded me of Romans 8:1-2 which tells us that there is now no condemnation (judgment) to those who are in Christ Jesus, who live not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the spirit of the law. We are not under the law; we are under grace. Therefore, the law no longer applies to us. Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf. Jesus did not come to do away with the Law but to fulfill the Law, which He did for us.
            The Bible says all we need to do is call upon the Lord and He will save us. That means all we have to do is ask Him to help us, to save us, to forgive us, and He will do so. Peter said that it is not God’s desire that any should perish (die eternally) but all to come to repentance. Jesus said that God gave His Son because He loved us and that if we believe in (have faith in) His Son we will not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus did not come into the world to judge the world but to save the world. He will save anyone who believes in Him. “To all that received Him, He gave the power to be called the children of God, even to those who just believed on His name.”
            Romans goes on to say in chapter 10, that if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. We believe with the heart and our confession leads to salvation. When we confess that Jesus is the Christ, we are agreeing with God that Jesus is His Son and that Jesus is the Savior. It is like when a criminal confesses to a crime. When he confesses, he is merely getting in agreement with what the police already know. When our hearts are in agreement with our mouths, something powerful happens. It’s not just a mouth thing. People can say anything but when they say it because they believe it, a change takes place.
            So, my trust is in the Lord. I know that I cannot save myself. It is He who loved me. It is He who set out to restore the breach in our relationship. It is He who made a way for me to be saved.  It is He who pursued me. It is He called me. It is He who saved me. It is He who will keep me saved. Paul said it like this, “I know in Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that Day.” Therefore, if I was counting on myself to keep myself saved then my faith would be in me and not in Him. Instead, my faith is in Christ and what He did on my behalf.
          Sola gratia…grace alone. Solus Christus...Christ alone.