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By Michael John Schwirzer

An interesting wrinkle occurs as a man discovers his undone condition and inability to perform the Law. To avoid what now appears to be inevitable defeat , he maneuvers a semblance of external law-keeping designed to fool even himself. And since he himself is fooled by his "complying" with his own diminished standards, he expects the approbation of heaven; yeaeven demands it.

It all begins with doubt. Onus creates desperation. Desperation leads to panic. Panic overcomes reason. Unreasonable concession to a futile system of works-based religion leads to self-justification. The man finds himself unwittingly at the bottom of the tank. I’ve been there. There are a lot of people down there. We need to pretend we are saved and so no one helps anyone else.

We can only keep pretending. Unending pretending requires someone outside the tank helping us out of our confusion. We thought that by being aggressive and going after the demands of the law vigorously, we would gain ground and eventually overtake them and declare the victory. But the more relentless we pursued, the farther we fell behind. This culminates in collapse, a bottoming out. The soul becomes a beached jellyfish.

Enter the only One who has never tanked out.....never scurried to assuage a guilty conscience. The One who sent pure light even to the tank bottom, finding me there. "Speak the word only and Thy servant shall be out of the tank."

Romans 4:4 Indicates that someone who is hired, or deems himself hired to do a job will not see his wages as a gift but as earned income; obliged to him by reason of time and energy expended.

Romans 4:5 Announces that right standing before God is predicated upon believing in the One who justifies the ungodly. The rewards here are for believing in Someone Else’s deed, and since there is no mention of one’s own deeds, we then understand that any time or energy expenditure is lost sight of in sight of that Someone Else’s.

The temptation to pretend is especially acute in religious communities; even more in insulated ones. We listen to another gospel which casts aspersion on the true by coloring it as spineless and unprincipled. Instead of going to the Strong for strength, the appeal is to "stronger works"; a doctrine in which I appear not to be excusing sin, not trying to palm it off on a hapless Savior. Here we destroy what we attempt to accomplish . In seeking strength we get futility. In seeking not to burden the Savior we wound Him afresh and mock Him before the adversary. We have fallen into the temptation of sweeping our own house. Like Sampson, our eyes are poked out, and we can only go around in circles.

The other gospel teaches that God’s indebtedness prompts Him to extend salvation to us. Our works create obligation, and He, being just, obliges. Who is obeying whom here? Grace is not consulted, There is no need of mercy. We consider those commodities too capricious and subjective to lean our weight on. Therefore we suppose that by "doing the right thing" we can create a moral atmosphere whereby God, because of the rules to which He has bound Himself and cannot lie, must now almost reluctantly slide a few of the hoarded chips of salvation within our grasp. Then we add to that lie the audacity of believing that our very reaching out after them and obtaining them becomes another good work. This adds sin to sin. Can you see the pain this brings to Jesus?

At this point all our energies are consumed in making white that which is black; i.e., our souls. We are focused on our grip on the chips. We imagine these are our down payment in the salvation process. These chips are precious few though, just enough to get us by, never enough for others. Secretly we fear mingling with the rabble because the grace we obtained through work today—the scattered prayer, the mechanical perusal of a Bible topic—is too flimsy for two. Our subconscious accurately assesses that these will save no one. And, should we, heaven forbid, slip backward or cease working, sorry, the chips return to the Owner. Soon we become weary in well doing. Our struggles become more feeble. And, should this all occur too close to the end of our chances, then it is game over: no more make-up attempts. A terrible darkness falls upon us. "I tried, I tried," brings no one to open the tremendous door. Silence is everywhere.

Thank God this "other gospel" is not true, but that salvation is of grace and not of debt. The chips denoting salvation full and free are piled far higher than our sin. They are already on our side of the table in Christ. No one is standing ready to sweep them back away from us at a moment’s notice. Nothing was given with smug foreknowledge that we could never hang on to it anyway. No, with abundant Grace Christ poured out Himself within the desperate reach of everyone. His cross placed salvation in our account and barred the way of the spoiler to diminish its worth.

"It is finished"- teleo in Young’s Analytical Concordance.: "accomplish, fill up, finish, fulfill, . make an end, pay, perform." In teaching us to pray "forgive us our debts", Christ Himself became the abundant answer. Debt to God ended with Him dying as us and for us. That is, in Him we have made an end of payments. In Him we have performed perfectly what in this life we were not able to perform, which is everything.

This truth is designed to make us free of every yoke, to disentangle us from prideful religious endeavor. Shall we take His yoke instead? Yes, because it is easy, and His burden is light. Faith will allow God to work in us to produce that which we secretly feared impossible. (See Acts 13:41). The magnitude of the work Christ produces in His people will amaze even those who are the most strenuous in demanding maximum human performance.

Higher than the highest thoughts are God’s plans for His people . More abundant than any doubt is the grace supplied to believe. The choice is ours.

Mommy and Shawn were in the basement and Shawn was playing with his trucks and the hamsters. Mommy ran upstairs fora minute, thinking Shawn would be ok. Well, he wasn’t. He crawled up on a chair to daddy’s table. My daddy is an artist, and Shawn ate some of his art stuff, like linseed oil and maybe paint thinner. Shawn was coughing and coughing. Mommy called 9-1-1 and a policeman came. Then he made a amblience ambulance come. (My mommy is helping me spell this.) They took Shawn to the big hospital and we went in our own car. Mommy kept crying about her blueberry-blue-eyed baby. When we got to the hopsi hospital, Shawn had wires taped to his chest with bandaids.

Shawn has been sick the last few days, but we think he is going to be fine. My mommy keeps saying that even though it never should have happened, God will use it. She also keeps saying that Jesus hurts when His children hurt. I’m glad I have such a tender, loving God.