Good works +Good works not equal to Jesus.
Weekly Devotion March 26, 2015
“They killed him…but God raised him from the dead on the
third day and caused him to be seen….He commanded us to preach to the people
and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and
the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him
receives forgiveness of sins through his name." ( Acts 10:39-43)
This passage is the sermon that the Apostle Peter preached
when he was called into the home of Cornelius. The Bible describes Cornelius
the captain of 100 men in the Roman Army with eight godly qualities. Devout , God-
fearing, generous ,prayed to God regularly and fasted ( KJV verse 30) . Others
described him as a righteous and respected by all the Jewish people. In fact
God even accepted his prayers, and his gifts to the poor (Acts 10: 4) and
angels appeared to him in a vision too! With all these good qualities he still
needed to be saved. He was a pagan who had converted to Jewish religion and
believed in God but he would still be judged by Jesus. An angel of God appeared
to him asking him to call the Apostle Peter who had a message for him. Peter
had a problem too; he thought the message of Jesus Christ was for Jews alone.
But here is a Roman who is not a Jew but yet believes in Jehovah, yet he needed
to hear what all the prophets testified, that is about Jesus; his death,
resurrection, and Jesus as the Judge and forgiver of mankind. Well, if you
follow the story this is what happened when Cornelius the godly man and his close
friends and all his relatives heard the message from Peter -“the Holy Spirit
came on all who heard the message.” Our good works can be a total hindrance to
experience the salvation of God. The world with its good and bad people needs
to hear about Jesus. Cornelius was told by the angel to send for Peter “He will
bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.” I
urge everyone reading this, not to be fooled by good works. Let’s do good works
but our eternal destiny depends on Jesus. Here is a nice story to illustrate further:
At the
close of a Gospel service an intelligent-looking man came to the minister and
said, “I do not see any necessity for the Blood of Christ in my salvation. I
can be saved without believing in His shed Blood.”
“Very well,” said the minister, “how then do you propose to
be saved?”
“By following His example,” was the answer. “That is enough
for any man.”
“I suppose it is,” said the minister. “And you propose to do
just that in your life?”
“I do, and I am sure that that is enough.”
“Very well. I am sure that you want to begin right. The Word
of God tells us how to do that. I read here concerning Christ, “Who did no sin,
neither was guile found in His mouth.” I suppose that you can say that of
yourself too?”
The man became visibly embarrassed. “Well,” he said, “I
cannot say that exactly. I have sometimes sinned.”
“In that case you do not need an Example, but a Saviour; and
the only way of salvation is by His shed Blood.”
—The Chaplain
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