One or the Other

It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. 

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

-Eph 2:1~10- (The Message)

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

-Romans 7:19~21- (NIV)

What's mercy without judgement? Mercy would not have its power if there is no judgement. To God, they are two sides of the same coin. He created salvation because He desires to demonstrate who He is. As written in Ephesians 2: "Saving is all his idea, and all his work...God does both the making and saving." Not us. We cannot save ourselves by reading more Bible, singing more worship songs, going to more conferences, though they are essential to our walk with Christ.


What's mercy without judgement? Mercy would have its power if there is no judgement. To God, they are two sides of the same coin. He created salvation because He desires to demonstrate who He is. As written in Ephesians 2: "Saving is all his idea, and all his work...God does both the making and saving." Not us. We cannot save ourselves by reading more Bible, singing more worship songs, going to more conferences, though they are essential to our walk with Christ.


Maybe I'm not making it clear enough. We're all in the same boat of doing-the-things-we-hate in Ephesians 2. And when we want to do good, evil is right there (Rom 7). It's the Garden of Eden all over again. As we are in God's eyes "locked gardens and sealed fountains" (SoS 4:13), we ARE the embodiment of Garden of Eden. We have to make choices between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death EVERY DAY, whether we like it or not. We either feed our spirit men with eternal substances or fulfilling carnal desires with a moment of satisfaction.

Go big or go home!

Following Jesus is not an easy task. We do not get to heaven simply because we accepted Jesus and were baptized in water when we were still babes, but through obeying what God commands: Love Him with all our heart, should, strength, and mind, and Love others as yourself (Luke 10:27).
Christianity should never be about names or fame. It's not about lighting and glitter. It's not about numbers. It's about making decisions with the love for God and others. It's about doing good works and singing songs with a heart that loves God and others. It's about casting our crowns before the Almighty instead of casting stones at our brothers. Christianity is never meant to be an "easy religion." We either go big or go home. THERE IS NO IN-BETWEEN because God will simply spit us out of His mouth as written clearly in Rev. 3:16. It's a matter of LIFE and DEATH, and the choice is ours.


This is the reality: We either stay as slaves of sin or become tramplers of the snake. We need to realize our identity in God as His sons and daughters and the authority we have in God's Kingdom over the kingdom of darkness. When we follow Jesus, battles are ensured to come, and our job is to win them with the assurance that the war has been won two thousand years ago on that Cross with Christ's sacrifice. We are prone to fall, but He picks us up and carries us because when He places challenges before us, He wants us to partner with Him to conquer them!

Once our eyes are opened to this eternal truth, it's so easy to share this love and take it to the streets of suffering, pick up the cross and follow Jesus into the homes of the broken, and be of ambassadors of Light in the valley of the shadow of death. It's time to get our of the four walls of church and BE one!

The clock's ticking.
Johnny