Eternal Approach

All that we have spoken of in this site is based upon the foundation of Christ’s sufficiency.

Our salvation depends entirely upon His completed and totally-sufficient work on the cross.

Which is what distinguishes the true gospel from the countless counterfeit gospels that exist in the world. Making faith in Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone the separating distinctives from every false gospel.

But that is only the beginning of the matter.

The True Basis of Our Christian Life

Whenever we discuss anything related to living the Christian life, we must come back to the same fountainhead of all our power, strength, wisdom, and whatever else we need to live this new life. Which all flow from the total sufficiency of Christ.

It is not enough to give some sentimental lip service to this idea. If we are not resting upon and depending upon His finished work, then we are depending upon ourselves.

Regardless of our depth of sincerity and devotion in serving Him.

The Christian life is not about ourselves. It is not some challenge for each of us to be good enough. Or to read books to help us emulate the great works of other believers.

God is not glorified in that.

Because that is nothing more than a believer putting his own will power, devotion and zeal to the test. To see how far up into that Hall of Christian Fame he can go. Comparing himself to those who have gone before.

The source of all that we are must flow from Him. From the power and working of His Holy Spirit within us. And not from what good we can coax and wrestle out of ourselves to prove our love for and gratitude to Him.

That is not His method.

Of course, that is the method of all the religions of the world. And it’s certainly the method of all the false gospels that deceptively use the name, “Christian”. Which all depend upon some notion of the “goodness” of the believer. Or upon the sheer will power and determination of the mythical “super Christian”.

All of this is based upon a very sobering fact. That we each must see the total bankruptcy of our “best efforts” to live for God. And come to the same conclusion that the Lord has come to about us.

To realize that the old man or the natural man has been put to death. Which, by faith, has been crucified with Christ. This is something that must be believed and accepted as already done. It is not something we achieve. (Galatians 2:20)

The Bible calls this to “reckon”. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:11)

This is not to “reckon” like Jethro Bodine on the Beverly Hillbillies; who reckoned he was going to be a “double-not spy”. The Bible is speaking of “reckoning” in the sense of resting on something as a fact. As an established truth. Like someone relying on money in a bank account.

This is a gift and a reality that we must accept. If we don’t, we will be continuously frustrated and in despair while trying to rehab what God has condemned. Such as our old, natural man.

And that is the point. We must not place hope in what the Lord has condemned.

But all this comes with experience. Experience combined with faith in the written word of God. Which is our only infallible source of true knowledge.

Resting in the Lord who “calleth those things which be not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17)