Saved by the Love of God

 If you try to obey Jesus, to serve God, to help others with love for your neighbour, then God's heart beats over you with joy.

The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zep 3:17 NKJV

What does this mean?

Can we earn God's approval through good works? Not at all.

How do we come to God?

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Jn 11:25–26 NKJV

Your faith is crucial, but there are many who acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God and who strive to live virtuously, but you see no radiance of God's love in their lives.

There are those who do good works for Jesus and they hope to earn God's acceptance.

But there are also Christians who are humbly aware that they are only saved by God's mercy and forgiveness.

God loves you because he loves you.

He created you out of pure love. He longs for you to get to know him. He wants to have an intimate love relationship with you.

A duty-orientated religious person cannot even grasp this idea.

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” Jn 3:3 NIV

If God gives you the insight that you can only stand before his judgement seat through his forgiveness and cannot be saved by any good works, then you can ask Jesus to give you his New Life, and only as a gift.

Jesus has already paid the price on the cross.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 6:23 NIV

If you have started a completely new life with Jesus, you are God's beloved son or daughter.

For God, your trust and childlike love are much more important than your works.

But who can truly love God without following Jesus?

God is love. He loves not only you, but all your fellow human beings, everyone, even the terrorists, drug dealers and pimps.  

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV

 A beloved child with good parents wants to become like his parents. When we have truly discovered the love of God, we will also love our fellow human beings.

Those who experience God's love every day want to pass on God's love.

All who truly love God, want to serve God.

All who love their fellow human beings, want to help them.

All who come to Jesus with a humble heart will find an open door to a new life.

“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. Jn 10:9 NASB95

Those who live this new life in close fellowship with Jesus become like Jesus himself, a tree of life that produces heavenly fruit.

What kind of fruit did Jesus produce in his earthly life?

Tender love, extreme mercy, amazing wisdom, deep humility and fearless proclamation of the truth that can only come from God.

Jesus is waiting for your prayer. He will never let you down.

Why did Jesus Die?

 Why did Jesus die 2000 years ago?
He did not have to die. Because he was God's eternal Son, he was immortal.

The first people were immortal before the Fall. God warned them not to eat the forbidden fruit. If they did, they would lose their immortality.

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Gen 2:16–17 NIV

The first Adam was created without sin and was therefore immortal, but when he sinned he became corrupt and mortal. Since then we have all been born with a corrupt and mortal nature.

Jesus was born without our corrupt nature. Paul wrote that Jesus is the last Adam, the heavenly seed for a new humanity.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Cor 15:21–22 NIV

Jesus willingly gave up his physical immortality to suffer the punishment for my sin and yours.

His last word on the cross was the voluntary sacrifice of his earthly life.

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last. Lk 23:46 NRSV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV

Jesus can be your Therapist

 Many pious Muslims live under the storm clouds of fear. They never know whether their submission will be enough to save them from the flames of hell.

Some compare themselves to not-so-virtuous nominal Christians and they feel proud and superior.

Others compare themselves to extremely religious Muslims and they judge themselves as failures.

Then they can become extremely fanatical because they can never be sure whether their religious virtue is enough to save them from hell.

Unfortunately, there are also some Christians who live in such a religious no-man's land.

There are Christians who are trapped in pornography addiction. They feel helpless to escape from slavery and are full of fear of God's judgement.

There are other Christians who believe in Jesus, but they have never realised that they can only receive their salvation as a gift from God. They live just like Muslims, with the belief that they must earn their salvation.

If you think like that, you can become very strictly religious and look down on Christians who are not so strictly virtuous. That's exactly how the Pharisees were.

Or you can judge yourself as inferior because you fail again and again.

If you are addicted to porn or gambling, you urgently need help, from God but also from understanding people.

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Jas 5:16 NRSV

Many Christians need deliverance from demons and many need good counselling or a good therapist.

Jesus did not come to burden us with guilt complexes. On the contrary.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. Jn 10:10 NRSV

Such a life is only possible in close fellowship with God. God is love. Only those who experience God's love on a daily basis have access to this abundant life.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Mt 11:28 NASB95

How do these morbid religious attitudes arise, whereby legalism, pride or guilt complexes keep us away from the love of God?

Legalistic religion, tradition, inflexible or manipulative parents or pastors, fastidious moralistic culture.

Sin, perversion, abuse, shame.

I know Christians who were molested or abused as children. That can lead to all kinds of feelings and thoughts, all kinds of wrong turns in life, so that we are full of shame.

If you can't get rid of wrong thoughts and feelings, you must know that Jesus loves you unconditionally. Let Jesus be your therapist. He wants to help you and not judge you.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Mt 11:28 NASB95

God Wants to Give you a New Life

 Religious duty can be a slavery. Religious guilt can lead to madness.

Fifty years ago I was a student. In my summer holidays I worked for a few weeks as an unqualified assistant in an old-fashioned psychiatric hospital. In those days, many patients were in permanent care in large hospitals.

One day I accompanied a group of chronically ill patients on a walk with a nurse. I struck up a conversation with a man who would probably stay in the institution for the rest of his life.

He told me how, as a devout Catholic, he felt obliged to pray almost all the time. This devotion to prayer had become an addiction for him. He was good for nothing other than repeatedly falling to his knees and praying in all kinds of situations.

Religious duty can be a slavery. Religious guilt can lead to madness.

There are feelings of guilt that lead to insanity, but there are also real feelings of guilt that come because of our sin. They don't need to destroy you, because God gave his only eternal Son as an atoning sacrifice for you on the cross.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV

What does it mean to believe? Fulfilling religious duties like slaves? Jesus did not die on the cross in terrible pain just to found a religion.

Buddha, Mohammed and the Hindu gurus founded religions. In these religions, their followers must strive to attain some kind of holiness, but they are constantly plagued by insecurity.

A Buddhist or a Hindu hopes to have a better destiny in his next life. A woman in these religions can hope to return as a man in her next life. A Hindu woman must serve her husband well to earn this supposed promotion.

Muslims hope to escape the flames of hell, but they are never sure if their virtue is enough to outweigh their sins.

Jesus said God's salvation is a free gift that we cannot earn. Those who surrender their lives into God's hands are forgiven and have eternal life.

Paul knew he could never make up for his offence against Jesus. He knew that Jesus had died for his sins.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 6:23 NIV

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
not by works, so that no one can boast. Eph 2:8–9 NIV

We can't earn this new life, but that doesn't mean we don't have a purpose in life.

A well known preacher once said:

‘Jesus did not accomplish everything, so that you could accomplish nothing.’

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph 2:10 NIV

When we receive the New Life from Jesus, prayer is no longer a religious duty, but a communication with the kind God who loves you from the heart.