Romans 4:1-4 – “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?   2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”   4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.”  NKJV

            The human heart, as a result of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, is bent toward wanting to deserve our Salvation and God’s Mercy.  I am quite serious in that statement.  I cannot tell you how many times I have had people tell me that based on what they were doing, had done, and planned to do in comparison to others they felt that were okay with God.  Their ‘works’, in their minds had ‘earned’ them a spot in heaven.  In some of those cases no matter what I tried to do or say they could not or would not receive it and preferred to live in their self-justification mode, content with their list.

             As Paul reminds us if Abraham was justified by works then he would have something to boast about but that Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’  His FAITH and TRUST was what brought to him God’s Grace not his efforts of the flesh.  Paul makes a powerful statement in the last sentence that if we ‘work’ and if spiritual things were on the basis of works then it would be a ‘debt’ that God owed us not GRACE.  We read in Ephesians 2 that it is ‘by grace’ that we are saved and not of ‘works’ lest we should boast that it is not the result of anything that we have done other than TRUST GOD that brought about our salvation and forgiveness.

            Remember the Pharisee and the Tax Collector Jesus referred to in Luke 18 where both went to the temple to pray and the Pharisee self-righteously puffed out his chest and proudly declared, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’   Then He turned the focus to the tax collector who repentantly stood and would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’  Jesus identified the one that received God’s justification was not the man of ‘works’.

             I am not suggesting that ‘works’ are unimportant only that they will not save you.  I am equally convinced that while you cannot work to earn your salvation if you have salvation you will work.  I believe that faith demands that works become a normal part of life.  It is not to earn something but because of the free gift that we have received that we have a heart for the work of the Kingdom.

             Remember as you go through this day that your salvation was not earned by anything that you have done or will do but by God’s infinite and awesome GRACE!   So may God be with you as you go through your day!