The Work You Were Never Asked To DoBy Pastor Justin Cooper |
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There is a work God has never asked you to do. Most people spend their whole lives doing it anyway. It is the work of making yourself acceptable to Him. Cleaning up the outside. Keeping a ledger. Hoping the good column runs longer than the bad one. Look at John chapter 3 verse 3 with me. Jesus is speaking to a man named Nicodemus, and He says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Understand who He said that to. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. A teacher. A member of the ruling council in Israel. If any man had earned standing before God, it was him. And Jesus told him plainly that his tradition was out. His position was out. His bloodline was out. None of it could carry him one inch toward heaven. I want you to feel how good that news is. If the standard were performance, you and I were finished before we started. But the standard is not performance. It is birth. “You're going to drive yourself crazy trying to work salvation from the outside in.” "Salvation is not outside in, it is inside out." Pastor Justin Cooper Gospel Light Baptist Church Think about why Jesus reached for the picture of a birth. A baby does not plan his own birth. He does not work for it. He does not arrive early to help. He is born, and everything that follows — his name, his family, his inheritance — comes to him because of a life he did nothing to produce. That is exactly what God does in a sinner. Being born again requires no work on the part of the baby, and being saved requires no work on the part of the sinner. Look at verse 6, where Jesus draws the line as clearly as it can be drawn. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." — John 3:6 Two different things entirely. Flesh can be trained. Flesh can be dressed up, disciplined, and put in a pew. What flesh cannot do is make itself spiritual. That is why the effort wears you out. You are asking one kind of life to produce a kind of life it has never had. So here is what I would have you do. Take the one thing you have been trying hardest to fix in order to feel acceptable to God — the habit, the temper, the record you keep rehearsing — and stop carrying it as your qualification. Name it to Him honestly and ask Him for what you cannot manufacture: a new heart. Then let Him begin the work in you rather than you performing it for Him. Christianity is not a uniform you put on. It is a life you receive.
Father, I stop trying to earn what You have already offered to give. I cannot make myself new. I believe Jesus is Your Son, that He died for my sin and rose again, and I am trusting Him alone. Do in me what I could never do for myself. Amen.
Reflection What have you been working hardest to fix on the outside, hoping it would settle something on the inside? |
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Gospel Light Baptist Church | Walkertown, NC |
