It’s Not About Me by Max Lucado:
“On our own, we’re spiritually sunk, my friend. As sunk as the Kursk. Remember the nuclear submarine Kursk, the pride of the Russian navy? August 12, 2000, was to be her banner day. Five high-ranking naval officers journeyed to sea to witness a demonstration of her strength. But then came two explosions, enormous thundering booms that registered 1.5 and 3.5 on the Ricter scale. Something had gone dreadfully wrong. The seven-ton vessel immediately took on water and plunged 350 feet to the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. Most of the 118 crew members died instantly. Others were left to spend their last hours in freezing, horrid conditions.
Are we not like the sailors? Are we not equally helpless and hopeless? Like them, we are submerged–not in salt water but in sin. We need to be lifted up–not out of the ocean but out of our failures. “There is no one who always does what is right, not even one” (Romans 3:10 NCV). Like the sailors, we’ve hit bottom.
But suppose one of the submerged sailors thought of a solution. Suppose he declared to his fellow crewmen, “I know what to do. Let’s all press our hands on the ceiling and push. We will shove the sub to the surface.” Can you imagine the looks the crew would give him? Push a seven-ton vessel up through 350 feet of water? If they said anything, they would tell him to come to his senses. “You don’t understand the gravity of the situation. We don’t have what it takes to save our lives. We aren’t strong enough. We aren’t big enough. We don’t need muscles; we need a miracle.”
Separating you and God is not 350 feet of ocean water but an insurmountable flood of imperfection and sin. Do you think that by virtue of your moral muscle you can push this vessel to the surface? Do you think your baptism and Sunday attendance will be enough to save you? Legalists do. They miss the gravity of the problem. By offering to help, they not only make light of sin, they mock God. Who would look at the cross of Christ and say, “Great work, Jesus. Sorry you couldn’t finish it, but I’ll take up the slack”?
Dare we question the crowning work of God? Dare we think heaven needs our help in saving us? We’re stuck on the bottom of the ocean. We can’t see the light of day! Legalism discounts God and in the process makes a mess out of us. . .Legalism is joyless because legalism is endless.”
(Max Lucado, It’s Not About Me, pages 101-103)
BUT THEN THERE’S GRACE.
Grace means Jesus plus no one or nothing else
can save
can satisfy
can give approval
can sustain
can provide
can fill your longings
can love enough
There will be frauds and fakes that try.
There will be money and materials that fail.
There will be spotlights and stages that fool.
There’s your performance and perfectionism
accomplishments and accolades
attempts to accumulate
energy trying to be enough
working to be worthy
anxious about appearances
slaving to gain salvation.
But God’s grace takes into account none of that.
GRACE means
Jesus saves
Jesus satisfies
Jesus offers approval
Jesus sustains
Jesus provides
Jesus fills your longings
Jesus loves enough
Nothing we do can save us. Nothing we do can sanctify us. Only Jesus can forgive and redeem us. Trying to earn anything, either before we are saved or after, will only enslave us again.
Galatians 5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
Galatians 2:21 “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Each day we choose, freedom or slavery?
