I absolutely LOVED this little book on grace. It is so wonderful!!! Please consider reading some of these quotes!
Many people are working and working, as Rowland Hill says, like children on a rocking horse-it is a beautiful motion, but there is no progress. Those who are working for salvation are like men on a treadmill, going round, and round, and round; toiling, and toiling, and toiling; but nothing comes of it all. There is no progress, and there cannot be until you have the motive power within, till the breath of life comes from God, which can alone give you power to work for others.
God not only gives us salvation freely, but he gives us the power to work it out.
God will not repent for the man; nor believe for the man; nor lead a holy life for the man. God worketh inwardly-man worketh outwardly. And this outward human work is as necessary as the inward Divine work.
I want to ask you this question: If sin needs forgiveness-and all sin is against God-how can you work out your own forgiveness? If I stole $100 from a friend, I could not forgive myself, could I? No act of mine would bring about forgiveness, unless my friend forgave me. And so, if I want forgiveness of sin, it must be the work of God. If we look at salvation as a new life, it must be the work of God. God is the author of life: you cannot give yourself life. If we consider it as a gift, it must come from some one outside of ourselves. That is what I read in the Bible-Salvation as a gift.
The religion of Christ is not man working his way up to God; it is God coming down to man. It as Christ coming down to the pit of sin and woe where we are, bringing us out of the pit, putting our feet upon a rock, and a new song in our mouth.
If you run all through Scripture you will find that the law brings to death. "Sin reigned unto death." A friend was telling me lately that an acquaintance of his, a minister, was once called upon to officiate at a funeral, in the place of a chaplain of one of Her Majesty's prisons, who was absent. He noticed that only one solitary man followed the body of the criminal to the grave. When the grave bad been covered, this man told the minister that he was an officer of the law whose duty it was to watch the body of the culprit until it was buried out of sight ; that was " the end" of the British law.
And that is what the law of God does to the sinner; it brings him right to death, and leaves him there. I pity deep down in my heart those who are trying to save themselves by the law. It never has; it never will; and it never can - save the soul. When people say they are going to try and do their best, and so save themselves by the law, I like to take them on their own ground. Have they ever done their very best? granting that there might be a chance for them if they had, was there ever a time when they could not have done a little better? If a man wants to do his best, let him accept the grace of God ; that is the best thing that any man or woman can possibly do.
But you will ask, What is the law given for? It may sound rather strange, but it is given that it may stop every man's mouth. "We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:19-20). The law shuts my mouth; grace opens it. The law locks up my heart ; grace opens it - and then the fountain of love begins to flow out. When men get their eyes opened to see this glorious truth, they will cease their constant struggle. They will give up trying to work their way into the kingdom of God by the deeds of the law. They will give themselves up for lost, and take salvation as a free gift.
Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:1-2). There are three precious things here: peace for the past ; grace for the present; and glory for the future. There is no PEACE until we see the finished work of Jesus Christ - until we can look back- and see the Cross of Christ between us and our sins. When we see that Jesus was "the end of the law for righteousness" (Romans 10:4); that He "tasted death for every man" (Hebrews 2:9); that He "suffered the Just for the unjust" (1 Peter 3:18) - then comes peace. Then there is "the GRACE wherein we now stand." There is plenty of grace for us as we need it - day by day, and hour by hour.
Then there is GLORY for the time to come. A great many people seem to forget that the best is before us.
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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