The Message of Christ's Blood

The heart of Scripture is communicated in the third chapter of Romans. That is that no one can be declared righteous ... a child of God ... separate from the blood of Christ, His cross and His atoning death. We cannot earn the Lord's favor by rule-keeping and doctrinated lifestyles. Neither can we by right living or the practice of good works. And not because every person inevitably sins, inevitably breaks a rule designed to make them holy. The simple, hard fact remains that a sinner cannot enter into the presence of the holy God. And rule-keeping and right living can't change us from being a sinner. That's where legalism always fails. We aren't sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. Being a sinner is much like being pregnant. I can get pregnant because I am a woman, not a woman because I can get pregnant. Do you see the difference? It's absolutely essential that we understand this crucial point because as long as we think our conduct can influence whether or not we're a sinner, whether or not we can stand before holy God, we aren't in a right relationship. It is by my nature that I am a sinner and I can no more change my nature than I can change being a human being. It is by my nature that I am a sinner and because I'm a sinner, I sometimes sin. (Eph 2:3) Do you see what I'm saying? In and of myself I can no more change my nature than I can change being a woman and that is why Scripture so emphasizes sacrifice ... because the shedding of Christ's blood on behalf of the entire world made it possible for those who trust in Him to be cleansed of sin and experience a right relationship with their Creator. My conduct or rule-keeping doesn't even enter into the equation. The only thing that matters is that Christ's blood was shed for me and I believe in the finished work of the Son of God. The only thing that matters is that I accept what He did at Calvary and trust in His redeeming grace. Any effort I put out myself to make myself acceptable to holy God is pure waste. There is nothing I can do to make myself acceptable. No amount of rule-keeping will change this fact. I am a sinner in need of a sacrifice.

So does that mean my conduct has no value? Of course not. But the root of my conduct is such that I act the way I do because I want to. Not because I want to earn salvation for myself. I recognize the fact that I cannot earn my own salvation by my conduct or by any other means. Only Christ could earn it for me by the shedding of His own blood on my behalf. I have nothing to offer God but my love and obedience and faith and trust. Therefore I subject myself to His holiness and cling to the value of Christ's sacrifice and atoning death. Because it is only by means of His death that I can gain a right relationship to holy God and stand before Him accepted and holy. It is only by means of His death that I can enter into the Father's presence.

God must remain true to His own principles if He is to be fair and just. His holiness dictated that "the soul who sins [must] die." (Ezekiel 18:4) The penalty for sin had to be paid in such a way that God would accept the payment. Through Moses, God explained why a sacrifice was demanded: "The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement." (Lev 17:11) A life must be given for a life to be spared.

On that basis, our heavenly Father prepared a perfectly sinless sacrifice for all humankind. The only way God's justice could be satisfied and at the same time uphold His holiness was for Jesus Christ to take our guilt and sin upon Himself and die in our place. There's only one way to the Father, and that is that a person must believe Christ died as a perfect sacrifice in their place. To trust anything else is to ignore God's holiness and become entrapped in error. To trust anything else is to miss the point of Christ's sacrifice. Our righteousness is Christ's righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own. We can stand before holy God, accepted, approved, and eternally loved because of what Christ did on the cross and for no other reason.

Well another weekend came and went. I hope yours went as well as mine did. I thought about blogging on Saturday because I couldn't blog on Friday due to the fact that our internet server was down but I just couldn't quite get myself to do it. I had some intestinal problems on Saturday and just decided it would be best to skip my blog. So I had a restful weekend. I was a good girl and washed my car Saturday morning regardless of the fact that I wasn't quite 100%. And it was so nice to drive a clean car to church Sunday morning. The dust from the construction work at the end of the cul-de-sac really kicks up and settles on everything on the entire block. I don't have any idea how much longer the grading phase of the project will continue but I'll be glad when it's over. I can't help but wonder how our little street is going to handle the increased traffic for those 14 planned duplexes. And we're a bit concerned about the runoff we could be forced to endure what with them having taken out all the trees on that hill. The project supervisor assured Michael a couple weeks ago that it would all be vectored off away from the cul-de-sac but you know how plans sometimes don't work out as planned. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that everything works out the way they intend for them to.

Our weather has been hot and I am so ready for Fall to be here. About another month and things should start changing. If I can just make it through September. If we could get a little rain it wouldn't be so bad. A good rain would wash all this dust off all the trees and things around here and would be greatly appreciated in my books. I don't think we've had any rain all summer long this year and it's hot and dry and dusty. Maybe we'll get a little this coming month. I'm trying to remember if we usually get some rain during the summer and it seems like we usually do but I just can't remember for sure.

I have no plans for the day other than that my son will be coming over in a couple hours to download a program into my computer so I can do the computer things I need to do for the 40 Days of Purpose campaign our church is going to conduct. The campaign itself is just 7 weeks long but the preparation for that event adds another 8 weeks to the mix. Dan talked a little about the campaign during his sermon on Sunday. It's such a huge endeavor for us to undertake, especially considering we're really a small church but I have faith that the Lord will bless our efforts. I have a lay pastors meeting tonight at 6:30 and another planning meeting for the campaign tomorrow night at 7:00 so I do have some activity this week. If I didn't have church related events I think I'd probably just become a hermit. At least I don't have to plan on making dinner for the week. Michael grilled enough meat yesterday to take us through the rest of the week. It looks like Friday will be another missed day on my blog. (I'm giving you plenty of notice.) It's shaping up to be our big monthly shopping day so I probably won't be blogging on Friday. But I might blog on Saturday so be sure to check my blogsite so you don't miss out.

I think this is going to be it for this Monday morning. I hope you enjoyed my blog and that something I wrote touched your heart. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you tomorrow morning right here at godlover.