All the Doing and Not-Doing

So you do it. You learn the right thing to do, and you do it. And it is good, to do. So you hold your head up high. As though knowing the right thing to do makes it yours to own and to claim and to do. For it feels good. It feels right. To do what's right.

We all do it.

Then, you learn it. The wrong thing to do. And you avoid it and you abstain from it and restrict it. And it is good, to do. So you hold your head up high. As though you've reached some sort of standard only for the elite. And it feels good. It feels right. To not do what's wrong.

We all do it.

When God has declared, "It is finished!" (John 19:30)

So what's with all the doing and the not-doing? God has made you holy, already. Apart from your doing, apart from your not-doing. Already, you are holy, you who have believed on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation and sanctification. You are holy. Already.

And all the doing. All the not-doing. It all proves not enough. It just does. It just will. Because it will never bring you into the presence of God. It never will. It will never make you right. It never will. It will never justify you, or make you acceptable. It never will.

God has made the way. Already. For you. Christ Jesus is the way. Already. For you. The way to feel good and right and at peace. With the Prince of Peace. The way to be justified, satisfied, and completely accepted by God Almighty. The way into the presence of God. Christ Jesus is the Way.

God the Father, the only One Who is good and right and just. He has made the way possible for you, apart from your works, good or bad, by sending His only Son to die for you.

And it happens. The Life of Christ happens in you. When you submit, when you surrender, when you acknowledge Him as the only Way. The only way to be made right.

Because all your efforts to be made right and acceptable that were only causing death to your soul, they turn into a life-giving over-flow of joy and abundance. Yes, instead of losing life, you now receive life, and over-flow life to yourself and to those around you. Because, instead of striving for acceptance, you learn to abide in the One Who is Life, all for you!

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"For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." - Romans 8:3-4

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." - Ephesians 2:8-10