No filth there

It appears as though many of you read my book, “Miracle on Luckie Street” over the holidays. Thank you for all of the inspiring letters and e-mails. I REALLY appreciate them! It is obvious in reading them that my goal for the book is being fulfilled and God is using it to demonstrate His tremendous love and compassion for us through His power to transform even the worst among us, (me).

One of the key things that I gleaned from reading the Bible in the hospital prior to accepting Christ as my Savior was that Jesus was filled with compassion and not condemnation. So many religious leaders today preach the opposite. Some portray God as a stern fearsome taskmaster who sits on His throne just waiting for someone to get out of line in order to rein calamity down on them.

If you will take the time to read the Bible you can quite easily dispel those ridiculous notions. According to the Bible it is entirely impossible to avoid sin in our lives. If we could be good enough on our own, then Jesus would not have had to come to earth and die a gruesome death on the cross on our behalves. He understands it and is willing to forgive our sin and He died on a cross in order that we might live.

This is not to say that we can just state that we accept Him as the living Son of God and admit that He was resurrected. Even the demons in Hell and satan acknowledge that fact. Once we accept Christ as our Savior, we are to demonstrate our faith through our good works and try our utmost to avoid all sin in our lives. To preach otherwise would dispel the book of James: “I will show you my faith through my good works and “by good works, faith is made complete.”

Many religious leaders in their zeal for evangelism through the blood of Christ distort the good works notion and say that all of our good works are like filthy rags in God’s sight. They use Isa. 64:6 as the basis for their argument: “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags”.

Bah! This verse was written specifically to the Jews when they were in the desert and should not be universally applied. God was living with these people and yet they had turned to idolatry and were participating in orgies and the like and through it all were maintaining a posture of being righteous and professing to be “holier than thou”, even while burning incense on strange altars (65:3-5). God didn’t think much about their righteousness and even hated the Sabbaths and feasts that He had Himself ordained (1:13,14).

In my mind this message was nothing more than a rebuke and a call to the nation of Israel for repentance. Many preachers seem to want to make the message universal and theological, rather than specific and historical.

This verse was not written to all of mankind in stating that all of our good works are as filthy rags in the sight of God. Actually our good works are very pleasing to God (unless they are done with the wrong intentions) and Matthew 16:27 tells us that we will be judged and rewarded for them by Christ Himself.

Yes, our works are imperfect to a perfect God but the entire plan of redemption as presented in the Bible has its focus on good works with a glorious resurrection to those who have walked in them for Christ’s sake.

No, we cannot merit salvation by balancing our good works with our sins. Salvation and forgiveness lie in the blood of Christ. But the imitation of our Lord – which includes works (Acts 10:38) – is an obligation of our salvation. It is also a high privilege and a joy. The bottom line is you can be assured that God does not view your good works as filthy rags and that Jesus is smiling whenever you conduct them in His honor and to glorify Him, (rather than yourself in order to be seen by others).

There are many myths being espoused from the pulpit and the Bible tells us to test them. I encourage you at the beginning of this brand new year to read the Bible for yourself. There is nothing like getting the story straight from God’s word. When you hear something being preached or written, (as in WFTD), you will know whether or not it is accurate according to your interpretation. Without that, you must just put your faith in others to tell you what to believe.

Hmmm. Not good

Eph 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.