PT-2 "Salvation is Through Faith" (Eph. 2:8-9)

 

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 did 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 is 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