I am so grateful that God made the gospel so simple. Because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, we are made right with God, when we believe and receive what he did for us, period the end! There is nothing we can do to make ourselves “more right” with God. By faith and faith alone in Jesus, we have received the righteousness of God himself – HIS righteousness vs. our own. Read 2 Corinthians 5:21. No matter how many mistakes we may make, we will never lose that gift of righteousness that Jesus has faithfully provided for us. In the first place, God gave it to us APART from our own works. See Romans 4:5-6.
Another misconception about the simplicity of the gospel is when we hear folks using the word “balance” relating to the gospel; a huge red flag should go up. The flag is actually about someone using the word balance when what they really mean is partially going back under the law so that you can stay righteous (or right with God) or be holy or worthy. The irony of that is, the law actually strengthens sin. See 1 Corthinthians 15:56. You see, Jesus totally tipped the scale of balance when he took all our sins on his body and paid the ultimate price to totally redeem us. He completely fulfilled the law for us. Hallelujah! He did the total work for us himself by this one act. To try and bring it back to us “doing anything” to keep or maintain it, or to earn or be worthy of it, is like taking something that is completed or finished and bringing it back out and trying to un-finish it and then continually try to finish it over and over again. That’s really what many are teaching and believing in the body of Christ right now. It doesn’t work. And many are tired, hurt and confused. To try and explain that, we get all sorts of opinions, teachings and “explanations” of why it isn’t working. The common denominator in almost all of these different “teachings” is that they put the weight back on the person who is struggling and feels rejected again by God, when they have actually been totally accepted. It is a very effective strategy of the enemy to rip God’s people off and it works. The teachers themselves are still striving and trying to “make themselves right with God, too.” They are trying to be like this man or this woman of God, rather than just believing by faith that they are like Jesus. Why would you want to be like anyone else, really?
God did not give us righteousness because we were good. He gave us righteousness because we believe in Jesus and his finished work (his righteousness provided for us). Because of what he did for us at the cross, all our sins (past, present and future) are forgiven. He makes us like himself before God. He makes us “right with God.” “As he is, so are we in this present world.” See 1 John 4:17. God will not remember our sins or count them against us. See Hebrews 8:12 & Hebrews 10:17.
God made it very simple actually. If you keep the scriptures in context and take them all into account, you are less likely to be put back under the condemnation that comes from relying on your own righteousness or ability to keep the law, like Paul addressed in the book of Galatians. We must let scripture interpret scripture. The enemy of our souls LOVES to twist the scriptures or take them out of context and put us back under the law. It is the only way he can rip us off of what has already been freely given to us through what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. If we believe that it is not finished, we will go back under a heavy burden and hard yoke. Jesus said that his burden was light and his yoke was easy. Hmmmmmm, heavy vs. light…hard vs. easy….Are you seeing it? I sure hope so.
I have personally fallen for the rip off lies myself and am so grateful that God has helped me see that I could really trust in the finished work of my beautiful Lord Jesus. Ahhhhh, entering into and staying in his “rest” really is my only struggle. We have a very crafty enemy folks. Well meaning brothers and sisters in Christ have bought into his lies, and are unknowingly helping him put us back under a yoke of bondage by teaching the erroneous teachings of balance or getting right with God any other way. We can walk freely and be like little children if we will just go back to the simple truth of what Jesus did for each of us; The Simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. What a loving and good God we have. This brings such hope and joy back to our hearts. Come back and enter into the “rest of God” that has been freely provided to all who will just believe and receive. It is the only way to truly be "right with God."
