Salvation Assured THE DO-IT-YOURSELF NATURE
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Eph. 2:8.
Man is an almost hopeless victim of do-it-yourself. Do-it-yourself is the label for man's nature with which he is born. Other labels would be self-centeredness and self-sufficiency. Even while we are small children this very principle is ingrained in out systems. I can remember trying to clean out our garage, and my 3-year-old wandering into the garage, wanting to help. He started to do something, and he was doing it wrong. I didn't intend for this thing to be placed there, or that to be picked up and put back from where I'd already moved it. And so I tired to correct him. What did he say? "Do it myself, Daddy, do it myself." Who taught that to him? Well, I may have helped. Mother may have helped. But he was born with that in his system. One of the most difficult things to tell a teen-ager who is just beginning to feel his wings and is leaving the nest is that he is a dependent creature and must depend upon God. How can a person satisfy his desire to be independent and self-sufficient and still be dependent upon God? Here is where we get into an extremely complex situation. This is the dilemma that makes it so hard to be saved. It is not only the dilemma of the child or the teen-ager but of everyone. It's man's nature.
Because we are born with this inherent do-it-yourself nature, and because we find it hard to surrender our independence, we have found that in religion a person often depends upon what he is able to do to earn and to merit his salvation. This is the basis of all the heathen religions. We easily become victims of works or of behaviorism as our hope of salvation. But Ephesians 2:8 and 9 tells us that by grace are we saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves. The grace is not of ourselves; neither is the faith of ourselves. Romans 12:3 tells us that faith is a gift, given to every person. And God has given us the Scriptures, by which faith grows. So faith is a gift, grace is a gift. We have to admit, if we are accepting God's Word, that we cannot look to ourselves for any hope of salvation whatsoever. We can only accept His gifts.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Eph. 2:8.
Man is an almost hopeless victim of do-it-yourself. Do-it-yourself is the label for man's nature with which he is born. Other labels would be self-centeredness and self-sufficiency. Even while we are small children this very principle is ingrained in out systems. I can remember trying to clean out our garage, and my 3-year-old wandering into the garage, wanting to help. He started to do something, and he was doing it wrong. I didn't intend for this thing to be placed there, or that to be picked up and put back from where I'd already moved it. And so I tired to correct him. What did he say? "Do it myself, Daddy, do it myself." Who taught that to him? Well, I may have helped. Mother may have helped. But he was born with that in his system. One of the most difficult things to tell a teen-ager who is just beginning to feel his wings and is leaving the nest is that he is a dependent creature and must depend upon God. How can a person satisfy his desire to be independent and self-sufficient and still be dependent upon God? Here is where we get into an extremely complex situation. This is the dilemma that makes it so hard to be saved. It is not only the dilemma of the child or the teen-ager but of everyone. It's man's nature.
Because we are born with this inherent do-it-yourself nature, and because we find it hard to surrender our independence, we have found that in religion a person often depends upon what he is able to do to earn and to merit his salvation. This is the basis of all the heathen religions. We easily become victims of works or of behaviorism as our hope of salvation. But Ephesians 2:8 and 9 tells us that by grace are we saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves. The grace is not of ourselves; neither is the faith of ourselves. Romans 12:3 tells us that faith is a gift, given to every person. And God has given us the Scriptures, by which faith grows. So faith is a gift, grace is a gift. We have to admit, if we are accepting God's Word, that we cannot look to ourselves for any hope of salvation whatsoever. We can only accept His gifts.
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