Turning popular thoughts on their head 1:-thinking we can please God

I was watching One Foot in the Grave last night, and I paraphrase a priest in light of coping with death "faith is measured by the goodness of our hearts."

Really? I mean, really?

The last thing that we want to admit as humans is that we are wrong. That we get things wrong, that we are anything other than perfect, that we can get by, even so much as being able to please God Himself.

Look at me for example. I HATE being wrong, and a trap I easily fall into is as follows: I read my Bible every day, I pray, sometimes I react well to trouble, look at me, pleasing God.

Really?

Humanity has tried over the years to try and please God on their own merits. I encourage you to read the books of 1 and 2 Kings sometime. In this book, individuals are put on the throne by God, promised long lasting kingship and dynasty if they are trusting God, trusting Him enough to obey. Note, this is about TRUSTING GOD. What happens? Look at Kings such as Solomon and Jereboham, how they behave, on their own, without trusting nor obeying God. They fail, epically. I encourage you right now to read 1 Kings 11-12, and contrast them with how a king is to be in God's eyes in Deuteronomy 17.

It is a deadly serious problem with devestating consequences, to lead people to think they can please God, that they can obtain His promises (Genesis 12 and 15, Ezekiel 34-37), on their own. Let me ask you, if we can be good, why Jesus? Why did God step into history as Jesus, and shed his blood on a wooden cross? Well, what does Romans 5 talk about?

"6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

Christ died for us, so that we can be reconciled to God, not so that we can continue trusting in ourselves to inherit God's promied perfection (Ezekeil 36: 24-27: "I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. ")

This is the devil's work, the fact that Christianity is stereotyped on living a good life and then going to heaven. NOT SO. We must fight this, in our lives and in our world. For you see, we are saved by Christ, and we may accept that, but as we live our lives, what is our trust in? The blood of Christ, or our works? I really encourage you to read Galatians 3, where Paul deals with this very issue in the Galatian church.


What gives you strength to get up in the morning? The thought that your efforts alone can please God? Or that He has made you clean through His blood, and that is what saves you. Live a life for God, certainly. But don't trust in what you do as you live, but what Christ has done for you already.