Nothing throws me off like switching gears back to works mode, and trying to get into a room that I’m already in. It can spin me out for weeks, if I let it. There is something about relying on our own sufficiency that seems to be very alluring to us, as humans, even though it is an utterly hopeless place to be in.
“I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.” ~ Galatians 2:21
There is literally nothing that any of us can do, or that we ever could have done — ever, under any circumstances whatsoever — to make us right with God. The natural rift created by sin was something that human beings simply did not have the power to undo. I use past tense here, because those days are over. Because of what Jesus Christ did for you and me, we all have free access to the throne of God, to ask for help whenever we need it.
Because of this, spending time with God is something that we can do immediately, and it can happen whenever we want. The sense that our prayers are not heard, that we must struggle to convince Him to listen, is based on a faulty consciousness of a situation that is simply not based in reality anymore. All separation was completely done away with by what Jesus has already done. Nothing more could ever be added to the atoning work of Calvary, and nothing can ever be taken away from it. Not really.
We can become convinced that this is not true, though…and the faith of a human being is a powerful thing, whether it’s in the right thing or not. This is the devil’s only real power: to convince us that God is against us. If he can do that, then he’s got you. Ugh. He’s such a jerk. Don’t let him do it! Do not put more faith in your sin than you do in God’s grace. Remember that you came to Jesus by grace alone, and only grace can keep you. If there is ever to be any hope of full deliverance from everything that does not line up with the Word of God, then it is only in His grace. Know that.
