Jesus' Shared Wisdom

10: Our Actions Alone Cannot Save Us

Arkada, you told us over and over about how we need to act on our faith. Why do you say that we cannot be saved by our actions?

Have you noticed that every religion created by man relies on the actions of man for salvation? Christianity is the only religion that teaches that true salvation comes from the actions of Jesus, instead of the actions of man. Each other religion provides some form of an instruction manual, explaining the steps people must take to become right with God. In other religions, you are your own guide. Your actions alone lead to your salvation. However, as Christians, we have already been saved and made right with God. This occurred when Jesus died for us on the cross.

Do you remember the Law of Moses from the Old Testament? There were 613 laws that people believed they needed to follow to become right with God. By following all of these laws perfectly, you would have met God's glorious standards. However, not a single human being could follow all these laws. Even kept 612 of the laws, if you broke one law, you had sinned against God and your just punishment was death. Through these laws, God showed how human beings could never reach His glorious standards alone.

This is why Jesus came to Earth to die for our sins. God knew that we could not keep this covenant alone. Jesus lived on Earth and followed all 613 laws perfectly. By doing so, He made these laws obsolete and created a new and more simple command for us to follow. Jesus's command was simply for us to, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
(Matthew 22:37-40)

Through His life on Earth, Jesus completed the 613 piece puzzle of the Law of Moses, which we could not do. Jesus had lifted the burdens and weights of the old laws off our shoulders and stacked them on His shoulders. He followed all the laws perfectly, so we didn't have to.
Jefferson Bethke, author of
Jesus > Religion, states this perfectly when he says, "All other religions essentially say, 'This is what you have to do to be in right standing with God.' Jesus comes to Earth and says, 'This is what I've freely done for you to put you in right standing with God."

Although we must act on our faith since it is our duty as a Christian, we must not rely on our own actions to make ourselves right with God. By giving himself up for the world, Jesus put the human race onto good terms with God. We shouldn't focus on our own actions, since they won't ever compare to the actions of Jesus Christ. In fact, our actions alone will lead to our downfall, since we are flawed and corrupted. If we focus on our own efforts to get into Heaven and ignore what Jesus did for us, we will ultimately fail. Just like it was impossible for us to keep the Law of Moses, it is impossible for us to please Jesus with our actions alone.

"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away."
(Isaiah 64:6)

Instead, we should trust Jesus to help us follow His new covenant from Matthew. We should ask Jesus to show His love to those around us through us. We should trust Jesus to guide us and admit that our actions aren't good enough. This is what Jesus truly desired of us. He didn't want us to achieve salvation by our own efforts, since we would not find it and exhaust ourselves trying to do so.

Throughout many parts of this book, I've been trying to teach what I believe is one of the most important feelings to have for Jesus. This feeling is trust. By trusting Jesus, we submit ourselves to His will and are truly changed by Him. We don't have to worry about our actions being good enough for Jesus, since we can trust Jesus to guide us down the correct path. Our trust allows Jesus to act on all of His power and glory.

So when you feel like you have everything under control and you think your actions are pleasing to Jesus, trust Him to guide you anyways. Jesus always knows the correct path for us and has a better understanding than we do. Don't focus on your actions, and instead focus on what Jesus has done and can do for you. Keep this in mind when you do your part in the Great Commission. Trust Jesus and do not focus on your actions alone to fulfill your role in the Great Commission.

This wraps up the Great Commission part of this book. If you still have questions, please ask in the comments. Otherwise, please share what you have learned with the people around you. Thanks for reading!