Preface
I wrote some parts of this study in July 2009, but I never felt peace about publishing this study back then. Even though I was experiencing a mini-revival in my heart at that time, the study in its original form was much to critical. The study wasn’t un-Biblical, it’s just that I was in the wrong place to share it, at that time. There is a Biblical principle that we are to follow, given in Matthew 7:
Matthew 7:1-5 1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
This plainly says, consider your judgment, consider your condition first, correct your own condition, then if you are right go and help your brother. We have no grounds for trying to work in other’s lives in areas that we don’t have right ourselves. The passage above tells us clearly that when we do this, we are hypocrites. It’s imperative that we be sensative to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives, even when we aren’t entirely right. In due time, if your thoughts were from the Lord, He will release you to share them appropriately.
Introduction
How many good works must a person do to be considered right with God? How many years does it take for someone to earn favor with the Almighty? Does God have a scorecard with a running total adding all the good works and subtracting for all the evil works? If I read my Bible eight hours a day, will that justify me before God? If I spend most of my days in prayer, will God count me among the righteous? How many Church activities does it take for God to count me among the Christians? Is there anything I can do to be justified before God?
These are age old questions answered in many different ways by many different people. These questions reveal our separation from God and our built-in necessity to be reconciled with Him. We ask these questions after recognizing how empty and meaningless our lives are apart from God. Many men have provided answers to these questions for personal gain, sometimes for money and at other times for power. Most of the cults around the world generally have answers that will provide a system whereby you can earn justification before God. Are these systems sufficient to make us justified? Does the Word of God reveal these systems to us, so we can chart out a list of activities to fill our days and when we have finished God will open His arms and welcome us into His Kingdom? Certainly we understand that Christians are saved unto Good works, but can we in any way use those works to justify ourselves before God? This debate is very ancient and the Bible records a few living illustrations to show us the futility in trying to justify ourselves. God has answered each of these questions plainly in His Word, and we would do well to take the time to understand. God has provided only one way for our justification, and that is found entirely in the person and work of Jesus. This study doesn’t center around salvation, but rather is instruction for those who are already saved. This study is meant to challenge us and show us how it can be absolutely clear when we are right with God.
Willing to Justify Self
Sadly, even in the Bible-teaching Churches many who know the truth still justify themselves based on false pretenses. We read our Bibles faithfully, we pray faithfully, we fellowship with other believers regularly, we tithe faithfully, we attend Church regularly, we teach our sunday school classes, we serve our neighbors often, we witness to the lost from time to time, we proudly display religious slogans and trinkets so we are easily identifiable as christians, we visit the sick and needy, we go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel, and sometimes we even die for our faith. Does this religious activity justify us? The answer is a resounding NO! We must never make justification for ourselves by the works we do, because these works cannot make us right with God. God is holy, set apart from us, above us in every way, we cannot even approach God and live, by ourselves.
Additionally, we spend our time judging one another based on what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and not by relying on the Spirit of God to judge rightly. Elevating ourselves above the other members and parading ourselves as shining examples of righteousness. So am I saying we should just let sin run wild before us? God forbid, outright sin should be dealt with according to the Word of God. However, in cases where we don’t know or God hasn’t sent us, we should keep our judgments until God reveals every work clearly at the perfect time. We have been promised in the Word of God that all things will be revealed (
I Corinthians 3:13), and He keeps perfect books. In our zeal to correct every situation that we don’t understand we overrun and even overthrow the faith of some, and this cannot continue, nor is it appropriate according to the Word of God. We also run the risk of alienating our fellow members to the point of exacerbation whereby we receive a harsh reaction and cause a division in the body. Am I saying never approach someone to learn more about a matter? No, there should be a free exchange and a proactive willingness to help within the Body of Christ. In-fact members of one body should be so close to one another that if a connected part is having problems the others should immediately be aware and go to work assisting to restore the ailing part to full service. This should be a scathing rebuke to all of us who elevate ourselves above our fellow members, and even to the point of casting certain parts out because they don’t seem to fit. Those parts that God has included in the body let no man declare as unacceptable! It is high time that the invisible Church become an actual family and not just a family of pretense. How can we justify ourselves before God when parts of our own body are falling off or decaying? The Lord is a master wordsmith and the imagery comes right out of the Scripture (
I Corinthians 12:12-31). Picture the entire body well with only one blackened arm dangling by some bloody sinew. How strange it must be to find the body going on about their daily lives while some parts are falling off (read and meditate on I Corinthians 12:26)! If these words don’t find you in shock, yea fear and trembling, then where must your heart be in truth? Maybe we should read through the first three chapters of the Revelation again, and listen to the Words of the Lord to the Church. How much suspense must we build before we realize that spirituality is not born of religious exercise? Oh but the Bible teaches that Jesus will not lose any of the Church, so we don’t have to care that much, God has it covered, right? NO, and the Lord rebuke you for the hardness of your heart! With bitter tears, long suffering, and feet that move swiftly and purposefully we should repair the broken body. I CHALLENGE you to open your Bible right now and read
Luke 10:25-37, and then justify yourself! Where are we when religious piousness overrides our great love toward one another? If the Samaritan can love his neighbor as himself, and the Church is to love and nurture its own body, then how can a Christian sit by and watch their own body decay without getting involved? I write these words to our shame!
I know many will read the words above and immediately try to find some way of justifying themselves so they can rest a little easy tonight, and this is exactly the reason the lesson is so very important right now. We must have our hearts softened, we must have our eyes opened, and we must hear the Spirit of God moving us to humility. We have but one response before a righteous, holy, living God, and that is to say simply, Lord forgive me a sinner. We must get this right! We can not continue on the way things are, they have to change, we must change. Consider the following Scripture in the context of this study:
1 John 3:11-24 11 ¶ For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous. 13 Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. 14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? 18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. 19 ¶ And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. 20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. 22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. 24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.
1 John 4:7-21 7 ¶ Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 ¶ Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us. 20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
There cannot be any clearer example than the Lord Jesus humbling himself, coming as a man, and working on our behalf when we most needed His help. Jesus is God, so He could have just spoken a word, or He could have even left us in our sins (praise God that He did not leave us in them). He did not stop at words, but He put His love into action. Such great Love that He even endured the suffering of a cross and died to pay for a debt we owed to God. It should be very real to us now, we should see clearly how far love needs to go. This is God’s will for us, that we love one another as He loved us. That will mean a cross for some of us, or all our worldly possessions for others, all of our time for others, pain and suffering for others. Really consider your life, do you lay down your own life for others, as the Lord has done? I have not written these words as an intellectual exercise, but rather in hopes that we might become more faithful Christians. Not with our normal understanding of faithfulness to religious activity, but with true faithfulness to our Lord and the eternal things summed up in Love God and Love your Neighbor as Yourself!
Justification exemplified
Luke 18:9-14 9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Romans 4:1-3 1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? 2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. 3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Broken humility is the only response to a Righteous God. Understanding and seeing yourself as you are before God is critical if you are ever to reach out and actually love another person. So many times, we find ways to justify ourselves and gloss over our own condition, telling ourselves that God understands. What is it that God understands exactly? What do we expect His response to be toward us, when we preach Hell-fire to others, but inwardly we are barely hanging onto the salvation He worked in our lives? If our love extends only to prayer and conversation, then we don’t even understand the most basic part of Love. Am I saying prayer isn’t effective, or conversations aren’t useful, by no means. However, true love is active and involved, and goes out of the way to meet needs. We are a lazy and self serving generation, and this has bled into the Church to the extreme. If you are the one person who is loving the body with all you are, then ignore these words here, but if there is even an inkling of a chance your love toward one another could be improved, then humbly pray and consider the actions God would have you take!
May the Word of God proliferate mightily in our midst!
Peace,
RedTigerOH