We all have faith. If we don’t believe it, look at these two examples. We get in our cars, drive down the highway at sixty miles per hour, and we trust other people to stay in their lanes, our brakes to slow our vehicles, and our cars to carry us back home once again. Once inside our homes, we flip the switches on the walls, and we aren’t surprised when the overhead lights burst into brilliance.
These are examples of faith. We expect these things to happen because we know they will happen. Do we sit in our cars feeding coins into the dash? Or call out to pedestrians to be ready to push us to our destination? Of course not. Do we carry a candle throughout the house, just in case the switch doesn’t flood the room with light? No. That would be silly.
Yet, in the spiritual world, we do those very things. We feed the offering plate so that God will keep our family from harm. We keep emergency numbers in our speed dial, even as we pray to God for protection. We go so far as to make backup plans, just in case God doesn’t fulfill the promises he has made to us.
Law or faith? What does God want from us? Does he want us to check the boxes, and when they are all complete, he will allow us into heaven? Prayer three times a day. Check. An extra offering for the visiting evangelist. Check. Teaching a Sunday school class. Check.
Law or faith? If we believe that it is through checking the boxes that we get to heaven, we void our salvation by faith. Salvation cannot exist in both mediums. If we trust in the law, we will receive our paycheck through the law. If we trust in our faith, we void the law check, and we will be paid according to our faith in Christ Jesus.
Romans 4:14-15 illustrates this. Paul says, “Trusting in our works voids the promise of Christ. It is by faith alone that we receive our reward.”
Paul was a brilliant man. He often wrote his premises by deduction or corollary. In this passage, he makes it clear that with the law come penalties. However, Jesus came to wipe the law away. Therefore, there can be no penalties for the law. We abide in him by faith, and in faith, we have the grace of Jesus as our hope in the Lord.
The Jews placed their hope in following Mosaic Law. If they did this, gave that, or avoided certain people, God would notice and write them a “heaven” check when they died.
Christ came with the New Covenant. It centered on faith, voiding all checks based in the law. Rather, Jesus writes his checks based on our faith in him, and it is his grace that pays the bill.
Our faith in Christ writes us a check that can never be voided.
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Code: FGO.B.05.14b.vp