JESUS ACTION FIGURE

For my birthday one year, I got a great gift:  The Jesus Action Figure!  That’s right!  It was the “Deluxe Miracle Edition.”  It came with fish and loaves, jars (they look like they have water in them but then you flip them around and it looks like wine), and glow in the dark hands on Jesus (not anything I remember from my Bible reading but an awesome attribute nonetheless).

It was a gift!  What do you do with gifts?  You receive them!  What do you not do?  Reach into your back pocket or purse, grab your wallet and ask:  “How much do I owe you for Jesus?”  And yet isn’t that what many do today, trying to buy salvation?  Salvation is a gift. 

So, you don’t think I’m making this stuff up, let me give you some scriptures:  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God Ephesians 2:8

Or how about this one?  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:23

Someone already paid for salvation.  You just need to receive it.

“Shouldn’t I clean up my act first?”

Nope.  Just receive!

“Maybe I should do some good deeds first so God will love me more.”

Nope.  God will never love you any more or any less than He loves you right now.  Just receive!

“How about some penitence like crawling on my knees to church or whip myself to drive out the wickedness out of me!”

Nope.  He does the cleaning. You do the receiving.

“Wait a sec, wait a sec, WAIT A MINUTE!!!  Isn’t our payment our faith?”

Nope.  In Ephesians 2:8 (Verse above) Paul is saying that salvation is a gift of grace given to people who don’t deserve it.  We’re not saved by faith.  We’re saved by grace through faith.  Here’s a great example I heard from David Guzik on this: 

“We can think of water flowing through a hose. The water is the important part, but it is communicated through the hose. The hose does not quench your thirst; the water does.  But the hose brings water to the place you can benefit from it.”

Our faith is the hose.  It’s not the source just the means to receive from the source.  We get the benefits of salvation to us through faith.  But our faith never paid for it.  Jesus finished work did.  The final words of Jesus on the cross were:  “It is finished!”  Done!  That’s it!  All over!  And yet some of us think we can add to His finished work?  “Thanks, Jesus!  But you hanging on the cross was great and all but let me help you out by doing a lot of good stuff to really finish your finished work.”  Come on now!  He’s the perfect sacrifice.  Nothing else needed.  Just receive.

I was in a staff meeting this week with all the campus pastors of our church (One church 7 campuses).  Our Lead Pastor shared from Hebrews:  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.  Hebrews 1:3

The insight our Senior Pastor shared was:  If you have a list of things to do, at what point do you sit down?  When you’re DONE!  Jesus sat down after He completed providing purification for our sins.  He was DONE!  Nothing else needed.

One other campus pastor chimed in with this insight from John 6:  ²⁸ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:28-29

Isn’t that just like us?  “Hey, God!  What WORK do I do?  What do you require?"  We’re all about working to gain God’s salvation.  Jesus simply said:  BELIEVE! 

Have you come to a place where you’ve received the free gift of salvation?  If not, please understand this isn’t something you work for.  It’s a gift.  Believe and receive.