When Being Good Isn't Good Enough: 21 Days of GraceSample

More Good News

When you became a Christian (if you have) you realized that a great price has been paid for you--that Christ died on a cross for your sins, and that you are now justified before God. At that moment you moved into a new relationship with God. No longer are you just His creature--you are now His child and a part of His family.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1-4). 

That’s all basic. Let me tell you something else that’s basic: When God is your Father, He never stops being your Father. To put it in theological language, not only is your justification (being saved) by grace, your sanctification (becoming more like Christ) is by grace too. 

The trouble is that most Christians think they’re saved by grace but grow by sweat. Many of us believe that when we were saved, God took our slate filled with sin and rebellion and wiped it clean. That’s a lie and it comes from the pit of hell.

Listen! God took our slate and He broke it in pieces and threw it away. He does not deal with his family by keeping track on a slate of how we are doing. The slate is irrelevant because of the blood of Christ. 

The word gospel means “good news.” If the good news applies only to my becoming a part of the family of God, and not to my staying there, then it is no longer good news. If I couldn’t be good enough to get into the kingdom before I was a Christian, what in the world makes me think I can be good enough to stay there?