Two Cosmic Lies that Devastate the Human Heart – Part 5. The Light In the Darkness, A Beacon of Hope. He Is Jesus.

This post is the fifth and final post in a series about the two cosmic lies that devastate the human heart. As I have written, thought about, and prayed over these posts, God has taken me on a journey of revelation. I now know that there is the truth, “You are not good enough”, and the lie, “You are not good enough.” The former can lead us to freedom, joy, and hope; the latter lie is demonic and leads to death (read my last post to understand what I mean). It is this life of freedom that I am writing about in this post – what is that life and how do I ‘get’ it?

Satan constantly tells us we are not good enough. But he offers a solution – self-sufficiency and self-gratification: “You can make yourself good enough”. Instead of relying on God, satan lies and tells us we can rely on self for all of our wants, needs, comfort, security, safety, and value – all under the authority of the dark power of Sin. The consequences are a life of slavery, destruction of relationships, the release of evil into the world, violence, domination of others, fear, addictions, and a turning away from God and His great love for each of us. It is a life of pride. It is a life that breaks God’s heart, because “God loves the world”!

When satan tells each of us, “you’re not good enough” his purpose is to fill us with shame, fear, despair, and hopelessness; and through us, the destruction of God’s creation, including life.

God also tells us we are not good enough. But He offers a different solution – Jesus. When we rely on Jesus for all of our wants, needs, comforts, security, safety, and value we live in the light of His great love and power. Our life, although not perfect, becomes a life of freedom. In fact, when by faith through His grace, we accept His offer of life, we receive His hope, His joy, and His peace – gifts that can never be taken away from us, no matter what satan and the world throw at us.

When God tells us we are not good enough, His purpose is to draw us to Himself, to give us this life we know deep in our hearts we were created to live because each of us is made in the image and likeness of God. Through Moses, God gave us the Law – the 10 Commandments. No human being in the power of self can perfectly follow them, reminding us again and again that we really are ‘not good enough.’ But, His purpose is not to shame us, but to point us to a greater truth – in Jesus we are called “more than good enough”.

How does God do that? How is it possible for sinful people – living godless, lawless, rebellious, and hopeless lives – to be restored to a life-giving relationship of power and favor with the One they had so carelessly and even brutally rejected?

Here’s how:

God knew that we could never restore our relationship with Him on our own, even if we wanted to. Why? Because we would never be ‘good enough’; we could never reach up to God. So in the world’s greatest miracle, in a stunning and inconceivable act of love and grace, God came down to us. He took upon Himself all of our Sin and sins, He absorbed into His own body all the punishment we deserved, and He died here on earth – lonely, despised, and utterly rejected, even by most of His friends and followers. By His death on our behalf, He atoned or paid the price for our sins. He did that in the form of his Son Jesus, who was fully man and fully God.

Jesus died on the cross in the greatest act of love – true love – the world has ever seen. He died so that our relationship with our Creator could be restored back to what God intended it to be from before the beginning of time. God, walking hand-in-hand with each of us, loving and caring for us, talking with us, empowering each of us to fulfill the purpose and destiny for which He created us, and living with Him just as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, except now Jesus calls this life in the Kingdom of God. This is the heart of our Father.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul describes the human condition and what God did to redeem humanity. He begins by reminding the Roman Christians of the hard truth, “There is no one righteous, not even one; no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless – “No one is good enough”, in my words. And then, Paul shifts gears, beginning with the single word, “But . . . “, a word of tremendous hope. In what some call the most important sentences ever written, Paul writes:

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood” (Romans 3: 21 – 24 NIV).

Verses 21 and 22 in the King James Version are significantly different. When I looked at the original Greek, it looks like the King James translation is more accurate.

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans 3: 21, 22 KJV).

In the NIV the righteousness we receive is from God through faith in Jesus. In the KJV the righteousness we receive is the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus. Big difference – we are given His righteousness through the faith of Jesus, which in some way becomes our faith.

Could God make it any easier? But there is one requirement we must fulfill. We must receive this life God is offering to us. Just like Adam and Eve, we have the freedom to choose or reject this new life in the Kingdom of God. We receive God’s gift of life through faith by His grace, but we must choose and accept the gift of righteousness.

One other important word needs to be spoken. When we choose what Jesus is offering, which is Kingdom life, we also reject life in the kingdom of the world. In other words, we turn from one life to embrace the other – we repent! Jesus tells us this is essential when He says, “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6: 24 NIV).

Faith is more than, “I believe” that Jesus is God’s Son. Even the demons believe this. Faith is also complete trust in Jesus, telling Him,” I surrender and submit my life to you”; and obedience as in “deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow Jesus”. I acknowledge that Jesus is not just my Savior. He is also my Lord. But I can do none of this without choosing Jesus and accepting this life. And if I am reading the KJV correctly, it is not just that I receive faith from Jesus, but I receive the faith of Jesus in me!

I have written many posts about the necessity and the freedom to choose. For example, in the second part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls each person to choose Jesus and His Kingdom at least 4 times, summarized by the command, “But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6: 33 NIV).

God’s gracious offer of life – freedom from Sin and darkness, a life of hope, peace, and joy – is extended to all (as I have written many times Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2: 3, “God wants all men to be saved”). But sadly many will reject it. John writes about this:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. But whoever rejects the Son will not see life” (John 3: 36 NIV).

In Romans 3 Paul uses two important words: righteous (adjective) or righteousness (noun), and justified. What do these mean and how to they relate to what I have been writing about for the last several months?

I believe righteousness is the state of being ‘more than good enough’. It also means being free from satan’s “not good enough” lie and the Sin that accompanies the lie – which is pride. God no longer calls us unrighteousness or “you are not good enough”, but now calls us valuable, “more than good enough”. Good enough for what? Free from the bondage, control, and defilement of Sin, good enough to live in intimacy with God in His Kingdom, receiving all the benefits and gifts of Kingdom life – a transformed life, power and authority, spiritual gifts like healing and prophecy, freedom from demonic oppression and fear, and a gradually growing life of holiness. Because of God’s eternal justice, sin must be punished. He took the punishment upon Himself so that He could call us “more than good enough” or righteousness.

The other word is ‘justified’. Justified is a legal term. It is a pronouncement. The Judge (Jesus) declares that I am justified when I choose to receive the righteousness of God and the faith of Jesus. In other words, God declares that I am “more than good enough”.

Justification means more than pardoned or forgiven. When someone is pardoned or forgiven, their sin or offense is acknowledged but the punishment they deserve is withheld for some reason. In effect, the Judge says, “You may go; you have been let off the penalty which your sin deserves.” When the Judge declares someone justified He is saying, “You may come; you are welcome to all my love and Presence . . . No ground for the infliction of punishment exists” (John Stott, Romans, pg. 110). How can that be? I don’t know, but it is.

When God declares us justified, He has put us legally right with Him. Our sins no longer separate us from Him by His decree; He no longer holds them against us. We have been acquitted, even though we may have lived a most horrible, sinful life. Essentially, from God’s perspective, it is as if our sins were never committed. Do you see that? It is all by His grace – His decision – through the faith of Jesus in us. Remarkable! None of this is possible by our own efforts.

Of course, satan will continue to remind us of our sins, trying to fill us with shame and despair. It is important to claim God’s righteousness. I find these words helpful when satan attacks: “I come out of agreement with that accusation. The Lord rebuke you!”

This does not mean that past sins might not potentially have consequences. But they should no longer have the power to drive us into despair and shame.

I want to emphasize that our righteousness or justification is God’s legal decree – as such it is true and real. Bu we are not immediately made holy. Holiness is the result of a journey called sanctification; it is a process we undertake (yes, there are works involved) in partnership with the Holy Spirit. Justification initiates the process, but sanctification takes a lifetime and requires a repentant heart, because none of us will be sanctified perfectly in this life.

There is another dimension to justification. When we are justified, declared righteous, the righteousness is “a righteousness of God”. We are justified, but along with justification comes newness – we are made spiritually, emotionally, and even physically new – a new creation. We are the same person in some ways, but we receive a new spiritual DNA – the righteousness of God! We are born again, as Jesus tells us we must be in order to enter this new life, the Kingdom of God (see John 3: 3 – 8). We are set free from the lies and from bondage to Sin. We will still sin (but as we are sanctified, hopefully sin less) but we are no longer slaves to Sin. We are no longer compelled to sin. We walk, not just in the righteousness of God, but the power of God, in the hope, peace, joy of God, and in the light of His love. When, by faith through grace, we enter the Kingdom of God, something supernaturally miraculous happens in us. Christ and the Father through the Holy Spirit enter into our hearts and make them their home. “Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you” (1 Corinthians 3: 16 NIV)? Incredible!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ . . . God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5: 17, 18; 21 NIV).

Isn’t this ironic? In the Garden of Eden, satan lied to Adam and Eve: “You can become like God”. This lie, as I have been writing, is the origin of pride and all types of human misery. Yet, at the cross, God gave us the possibility to become like Him in the sense that by receiving the faith of Christ, God Himself comes to live in our hearts. Crazy! And in the true sense of the word — awesome.

When by faith, through grace, I enter into the righteousness of God, God decrees that I am valuable; I am more than good enough. It is His proclamation – I have done nothing, nor can I do anything, to earn this reality. But I must accept His decree by faith – I must see myself now as God sees me. I must know, believe, and accept this truth in my heart – I am valuable, I am more than good enough, and I am a child of God, an heir to His great inheritance. No one can take that away from me, because the world did not bestow that upon me. God did. It is by faith, the faith of Jesus in me, that I accept that mantle (even if I do so imperfectly). And when I do, I will walk in power – you cannot hurt me! I will walk with an unoffendable heart. I will be able to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I will be able to love my enemies. I will even be able to love myself. I will be free!

Here is a quote from Stott’s commentary on Romans.

“Justification (its source God and His grace, its ground Christ and His cross, and its means faith alone, altogether apart from works) is the heart of the gospel and unique to Christianity. No other system, ideology or religion proclaims a free forgiveness and a new life to those who have done nothing to deserve it but a lot to deserve judgment instead. On the contrary, all other systems teach some form of self-salvation through good works of religion, righteousness or philanthropy. Christianity, by contrast is not in its essence a religion at all, it is a gospel, the gospel, the good news, that God’s grace has turned away His wrath, that God’s Son has died our death and borne our judgment, that God has mercy on the undeserving, and that there is nothing left for us to do, or even contribute. Faith’s only function is to receive what grace offers (Stott, Romans, pg. 118).

This life, bought for us at an incalculable cost – the death of God’s only Son – is what Jesus means when He tells us, “The Kingdom of God is at hand (or near, here). Repent and believe the good news” (the gospel) (Mark 1: 15 NIV). A restored, righteous, redeemed, and justified life is life ‘in-Christ’, lived with God in His Kingdom. It is Kingdom life! Not when we die and go to heaven, but now, here on earth. It is a life of power and authority. It is a life of purpose and meaning. It is a life that constantly reflects God’s glory and His love. It is a life in which the demonic lie, “you’re not good enough” is silenced, and the truth, “you’re more than good enough” is heard every day. It is a life worth living; and if it comes to that, a life worth dying for.

Hoping it does not come to that,

John