"Catch-22"

"And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the word, but to save the world." (John 12:47 KJV)

  "Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, "What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created." They deliberately forgot that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out of the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed." (2 Peter 3:3-7 NLT)

 There is something you must understand about yesterday's post, because we have already been judged for our sins, so sins are no longer what we will be judged for; now we are judged for what we do with the grace we have been so freely given! Mercy is God's free gift of salvation; grace is God making us His children and one with His Son! 

 Now, here is something very interesting, because Jesus is reminding us how important it is that we believe in Him, if that is, we want to be saved. The catch in this situation, is that we have already been judged sinners; we were born in sin, so that is something we cannot decide on or change, it is what it is, and there is nothing we can do about it! 

 The law was given, not to show us how to live, as if we were expected to keep it; but to show us how we live, and that we cannot keep it, no matter how hard we try! It is in our nature to break God's law, and has been from the beginning, and we be until we are in God's presence. 

 There really needs to be some give and take, or so we believe. Yes, there is! Both situations demand we die; one is the death that we are being saved from, the other is the death that sets us free from sin...

"But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. From when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law - I stopped trying to meet all its requirements - so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die." (Galatians 2:17-21 NLT)