Understanding Our Need for a Saviour
The Lord Jesus said,
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
John 10:10
The Bible tells us that God’s perfect law brings us into freedom! The writer of James says, that when we look intently into God’s law and do what it says, we will be blessed in all that we do.
“But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.”
James 1:25
- It is in observing the law and doing what it says that we will be blessed.
Simply observing the law does not make us righteous in God’s sight, because all of us will fail at some point. Rather, it is in observing the law that we begin to understand what sin is, or, we become conscious of sin; so, then we can change our behaviour. But we do not make this change on our own, without the Lord’s help.
“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”
Romans 3:20
Until the time of Moses there was no law. The Apostle Paul says, that the law was added so that the ‘trespass’; also translated ‘sin; offence; fall; fault’; would increase. The more we understand about sin, the more we become aware of its affect in our lives.
We are all in Need of a Saviour
Along with the awareness of sin, so does the awareness of our need for a Saviour
- Understanding our need for a Saviour is good news!
- God’s perfect law brings us into freedom because it points us to Christ!
Though sin may continue to abound in our flesh for a time, God’s grace abounds even more. He continues to forgive and remove our sin, whenever we come to Him in repentance. By receiving Christ, allowing Him to remove our sin, and receiving His righteousness in return, we gain eternal life. The Apostle Paul explains,
“The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 5:20 & 21
If we refuse to acknowledge our sin, the Bible says we lie. But when we acknowledge our sin to God, we are forgiven and purified.
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 1:8 & 9
- The law works to make us conscious of sin.
- The law establishes our need for a Saviour.
- Acknowledging our need for a Saviour is good news.
- When we acknowledge our sin before God and receive Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf – we are sanctified and gain eternal life.
Do not Grieve but Celebrate with Joy
In the book of Nehemiah, the Jews who had survived the exile to Babylon, returned to Jerusalem to rebuild its broken – down walls. When the walls had been completed, the people were living in their cities, as the houses had not yet been built. But they gathered ‘as one man’ to hear the Law of the Lord. Ezra was a priest, teacher and scribe, well versed in the law. And as he began to read, the people began to weep.
Before the reading of the law, the people did not fully understand what the law contained. But the instructions of the Levites, meant, that for the first time, the people understood.
“They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.”
Nehemiah 8:8
But Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were present, said to them,
“‘Do not grieve! This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. Nehemiah said, ‘Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’”
Nehemiah 8:9 & 10
When the awareness of our sin comes to us; and we fully understand how far short of God’s righteous laws we fall; a natural response is for us to grieve. But God does not want our hearts to stay in a place of grief! Christ has already made full provision for us through the power of the redemption of the Cross! Because of Christ’s love for us, our new found knowledge of the law should cause us to rejoice! It is as we receive Christ that we become the redeemed of the Lord!
“Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.”
Nehemiah 8:12
- God does not want us to dwell in regret, or to grieve over the things of the past.
- He wants us to experience release from the things of the past through Christ Jesus; and to know a future filled with joy!
- The key to our strength and moving on into our future – is found in the message of the Cross and in the joy of the Lord!
Our Repentance is an Act of Worship
Following their new understanding after the reading of the law, the Israelites spent an equal amount of time in the confession of their sins and in worshipping the Lord.
“Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, in sackcloth, and with dust on their heads. Then those of Israelite lineage separated themselves from all foreigners; and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshipping the Lord their God.”
Nehemiah 9:1 – 3
They blessed and exalted God’s Name. They proclaimed Him as the creator of all and spoke of His goodness and the great things He had done. They spoke of their fathers, who turning away in their arrogance, would not obey God’s commands. They spoke of God’s graciousness and His willingness to forgive. They spoke of His choice to continue to love and help them, despite their many sins.
“They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles You performed among them. They became stiff necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. but you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore You did not desert them.”
Nehemiah 9:17
They spoke of how God kept His promise to make their sons as numerous as the sky and how He brought them into the land He had promised. Even though God did all this, they soon forgot Him, yet God remained faithful!
“But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they put Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them in order to turn them back to You; they committed awful blasphemies. So You handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies.”
Nehemiah 9:26 & 27
God Continues to Show Compassion for the Weak
Time and again, because of the Israelite’s sin, they were handed over to their enemies, but when they cried out to God, He continued to deliver them. King David said, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had slept with Bathsheba,
“The sacrifices of God are (or my sacrifice, O God, is) a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
Psalm 51:17
No heart is impossible for God to restore. Even if we have made the same mistakes as King David did, the Apostle Paul now exhorts us,
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”
Romans 12:1
- When we come to God in repentance it becomes an act of worship.
- We are agreeing with God that His law is holy and that His law is good.
- We are acknowledging a God who is not only holy, but also slow to anger; merciful; gracious; loving and kind.
- When we come in repentance, we offer our bodies and all of ourselves.
- God receives our repentance as an act of worship that is pleasing in His sight and He gives us hearts to succeed as a result.
God Gives us Free Will to Make a Right Choice
Like a train on a railway track arriving at a junction, once convicted of our sin, we need to make a right choice. And just like a railway junction, each track we choose, or each choice we make, will lead us to a different destination. We can choose to ignore the conviction of sin, refuse to acknowledge our need of a loving Saviour, and continue on a pathway that remains unchanged. But when the track we have been following remains unchanged, so does the destination.
When we refuse the author of life, we refuse life itself, and any choice that we make refusing life, leads instead to death. But God’s desire is for all to be healed!
“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the Law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
Hebrews 10:26 – 29
Again, Jesus said,
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 10:10
God’s desire is that we choose to enter into a new life with Him and that we experience this new life to the full! But sometimes this requires some deliverance. When we acknowledge our sin before God and in our hearts, we turn away from what we know is wrong; because of Christ’s blood, we can both ask for and fully receive His forgiveness. We can then enter into a whole new relationship with Him.
- Christ’s message of grace is reason to be joyful!
- Because of God’s grace our future is good!
- Because of God’s grace we escape His righteous judgment.
- Because of God’s grace we enjoy new relationship with Him.
Draw Near to God
The Bible says, that because of mankind’s sinful nature, by our own will power it is impossible for us to fulfil the law. And when we have failed at just one point, God says it is the same as having failed at all points.
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.”
James 2:10 & 11
Because Christ died for our sins on the Cross, when we repent, God cancels the written code that stood against us through the law, because He already fulfilled the law on our behalf and took our punishment for us.
“He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
Colossians 2:13 & 14
When Christ fulfilled the law, He introduced a better hope. It is this better hope in Christ, that enables us to drawn near to God.
“The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.”
Hebrews 7: 18 & 19 NIV
When we are saved, we are not partly saved, but wholly saved; as Christ continues to intercede for us in heaven.
“Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.”
Hebrews 7:25
Every Righteous Requirement of the Law has Been Fully met in Jesus Christ
What we were unable to do for ourselves, Christ did on our behalf. He lived a sinless life so that every righteous requirement that the law requires, would be fully met in us, through Him. Therefore, we no longer stand condemned, but are free to live again. The Apostle Paul says,
“For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Romans 8:3 & 4
This does not mean that we will never make mistakes, or that we will never sin again, but that when we fail, we have an advocate. Jesus Christ is willing and able to forgive us our sins and to help us begin again. The writer of 1 John says,
“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 2:1 & 2
Jesus also said, concerning our need for His Holy Spirit to come along-side us,
“If you love me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
John 14:15 – 18
- What God did for us He will do for others as well
Walking in the Spirit
When we receive Christ as our Saviour, His Holy Spirit is deposited within us and our spirits are completely born again. But our minds, our will, and our emotions are in the process of being renewed on a daily basis, in order to make us more like Him. We are actively being changed from glory to glory, as the Holy Spirit within us becomes our helper. He connects with us, strengthens us and enables us to walk in wholeness, with Him, not away from Him. As this new nature of Christ begins to develop within us, we want to be more like Him. And our minds begin to focus on the things that bring us life and peace in Him.
“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Sprit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”
Romans 8:5 & 6
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Colossians 3:17 & 18
God wants us to consider our old sinful nature as dead and no longer a part of who we are. He wants us to switch our focus from all the things we have been doing wrong, to what Christ has already accomplished on our behalf. When we do this, we begin to walk free and to live our lives in a brand – new way. This new way of living, the Bible calls, walking in the Spirit.
“But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”
Romans 7:6
The Freedom of Walking with Jesus
- When we walk in the Spirit we are no longer under the law.
- When we walk in the Spirit we no longer walk in the power of our own strength.
- When we walk in the Spirit we no longer walk in the sin of our flesh.
- When we walk in the Spirit we are led by the Spirit of God!
“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”
Galatians 5:16 – 18
When we walk in the Spirit we draw near to God through our relationship with Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit speaks to us and convicts us when we sin. As God continues to draw us into relationship with Him, the desires of our sinful nature begin to fall away.
- When God captures our hearts – holiness of living follows!
- God purifies our hearts – not just our behaviour.
The Extreme Pleasure of Walking with Jesus
When we walk in the Spirit, our focus switches from our outward behaviour, to the enjoyment of an intimate relationship with God, through the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, Who abides and lives within us. God wants to build a relationship with us that is based on fact. His acceptance and love are based on our relationship with all three: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who is the ‘paráklētos’ – the ‘intercessor; comforter; or consoler’; who comes alongside. – See Strong’s Concordance.
Our Heavenly Father has already paid a huge sacrifice in sending His Own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the Cross, to totally remove our sin. He has left His Holy Spirit within us as a deposit, to teach and to empower us, and to lead us into victory in Him. His focus is always on His love and the relationship He desires to have with us, not on what we can do for Him. He wants our focus to be the same.
Separate Who You Are – From What You Do
It would be a terrible thing if I married my husband simply because of what he did for a living, rather than for who he was as a person. Or, if I loved my children because I thought they did everything right. It is the same with God. God doesn’t love us because of what He thinks we might be able to do for Him, or because of what He may get out of the relationship, or for any selfish reason, but because He desires relationship with us and because He loves us as His daughters and sons.
The Song of Songs, written by King Solomon, describes the intimacy enjoyed between a husband and wife. It is a picture of the excitement and joy of two people deeply in love and is an allegory of the deep intimacy that Christ desires with us; and that our hearts long for with Him.
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth – for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! Take me away with you – let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.”
Song of Songs 1:1 – 4
Just like any other relationship, our relationship with God is built by spending time with Him. We come to know Him more deeply as we praise and worship; pray and read His word in the Bible; and just by enjoying spending time being with Him. And as with any other relationship, there needs to be a two – way conversation. It is about God sharing with us and us sharing with Him.
Just as our intimacy with a close friend might be, or our intimacy with our husband or wife; the intimacy of our relationship with God is as deep as the level of sharing that we are prepared to have with Him. At times we may feel a gentle nudge from His Holy Spirit to come away and sit quietly with Him. We may hear Him gently speak to our spirits through a Scripture in His word, or through a song, or, through a God – given impression, feeling, desire, or thought. At times we may feel a tangible sense of His presence. But when we know the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, there is a strong sense of His peace dwelling within.
Have you prayed for someone to experience His presence today?
