I did it! Didn’t I?

I fixed my printer today.

For some of you, that elicits no response—unless it is “so what?”. Others will understand that, for me, this is a seriously major accomplishment. You wonder why I didn’t write, I FIXED MY PRINTER TODAY!!!!. Me! I did that! It is fixed because of what I did! (OK, all I did is go to “Maintenance” and push OK, but I did that!). Never mind that someone built and programmed the printer to self-repair when that button is pushed. I PUSHED THE BUTTON!

Sometimes we Christians feel that way about our faith. We see Christian friends living faithfully and are amazed! Then, when we have an experience where we are living exactly how the Lord has taught us to we can be tempted to see our relationship with Jesus as something we did. We forget an important fact about our faith:

Everything we do is just a response to His teaching. It is important. Without it, we won’t live how He wants us to.

BUT OUR FAITH IS ABOUT WHAT HE DID, NOT WHAT WE DO! Without what He did, nothing we do makes a difference at all. Even our relationship with Jesus is built on what He did. Everything else is an expression of our devotion to Him.  We need to do these things–Jesus commanded it! But they are meaningful because of what HE did.

This is really very simple, yet it has been a stumbling block for people for 2000 years! For an examination of how this works, I recommend you read “The Essentials Of Spiritual Health”, available on Amazon.