Rest Assured

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

 

-- Matthew 11:28

Maybe it's a co-worker, neighbor or even your uncle. They're the ones who always seem to come through for you in impossible situations. Like the time you needed a pair of sold-out concert tickets or a reliable plumber. And how about that iPhone they found for you last year--just when you were sure it was out of stock?

It's smart to keep these special people on your Christmas card list. Because rest assured, they're connected and have you covered. Likewise, if you're a Christ-follower, you're also covered in a more significant way. That's because Believers are in a close parent/child relationship with God. It's a bond made possible through Jesus' death on the cross--a punishment we all rightly deserve for our lifetimes of personal failures and shortcomings (also known as "sin"). But since we're connected through our faith in the right person (Jesus), he's already paid the enormous price to cover us.

Is this remarkable news hard to believe?

Some people think that their lives are already good enough to earn God's

acceptance, while others believe that they can somehow do enough good deeds to outweigh their sins. But what does the Bible say? On one hand, the Apostle Paul made it clear that salvation is a free gift from God through faith in Jesus Christ. We can never work hard enough to earn it. Let's consider one of Paul's most famous passages from the Book of Romans:

"If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved."

That seems straightforward. But what about these words from James, the brother of Jesus:

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

So is it our faith that will bring us into God's Kingdom, or do we have to work for it? And if so, for how long?

Maybe there's no conflict between Paul and James after all. On multiple occasions, Jesus' miracles revealed the incredible power of a seeker's faith. For example, we read in Luke's Gospel that a Roman soldier's faith actually "amazed" the Savior. "I tell you," Jesus told the crowds that were following him, "I have not found such great faith even in Israel."

This means we can relax--it really is through our faith in Jesus and his work on the cross that we're saved. But that's not to say that works shouldn't be evident in our lives. Rather than being saved BY doing good, our faith in Jesus leads us to being saved FOR doing good. Rest assured, the author of the Old Testament book of Micah puts it this way:

"And what does the LORD require of you? "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."