October 2009
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Christians know that salvation comes by grace, through faith, and not by works. Many think of it as sort of an equation: Salvation equals grace plus faith. The idea is that God provides the grace, and we humans provide the faith, and the result is salvation.
That might be an interesting sounding equation, but that’s not the gospel, and that’s not how salvation works. If salvation depended in any way on our faith, none of us would be saved, because as we all know if we’re honest with ourselves, our faith is frightfully weak at times.
The gospel, the good news, is not that God will give us salvation IF we have good enough faith; the gospel tells us that Christ has, in himself, already secured our salvation, and then tells us to believe what is already true for us.
Paul wrote in Colossians 3:1-4, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Our life is hidden with Christ. In fact, Paul says, Christ is our life. That’s why we can trust him for our salvation. Our salvation doesn’t depend on us; it depends on Christ. And Christ has already secured it and raised us with him.
When our confidence is in Christ himself, who is our life, instead of in our own faith or obedience, then our hearts can truly rejoice in peace, for he alone is our salvation.
And yet, it seems we have such a hard time resting in Jesus alone for our salvation. We fear that our sins really are more than Jesus is willing to handle, and that in the end, he will reject us because of our failure to measure up to his high standard of love and righteousness.
But Jesus wants us to know that he has already defeated the powers of sin and darkness, and that he has already forgiven us and made us clean. Even if we don’t feel it right now, it is still true, and Jesus will not stop doing whatever it takes to help us come to believe it.
It reminds me of the story of the Garasene demoniac. One dark night, after having been terrified and nearly drowned in a storm that Jesus eventually calmed, the disciples found themselves landing their fishing boat amid spine-chilling screams and howls on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The story is in Mark 5:1-6.
They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.
This man’s demons were so powerful that Mark describes them in terms of a Roman legion of 6,000 warriors. They made the man torture himself. They caused him to be ostracized and chained. They caused him unrelenting anguish and misery; but they did not have the power to destroy him. With a word, Jesus made them leave the man and sent them into a herd of pigs on the hillside. The evil spirits immediately destroyed the pigs, but at no time were they able to destroy the man.
How long had he lived in the graveyard under the unforgiving power of this legion of demons? We aren’t told. But we do know this: Jesus was coming. In Mark’s story, the only reason at all that Jesus crossed the stormy Sea of Galilee that evening was to deliver that poor man from his bondage. Jesus came to save him, regardless of the depth of the pit the man was in, regardless of the man’s inability to even ask Jesus to save him.
What has you in self-destructive bondage? Know this: whatever your sins or circumstances might be, they do not have the power to finally destroy you. Jesus is coming. He’s coming for you, to set you free. Not even death can stop him—his or yours. He conquered death itself. He can free you from anything. Even when our sinfulness darkens our hearts, somewhere deep inside we still know our need, and we know Jesus is the one who has come to set us free.
Thank you so much for your generosity and faithfulness to Jesus Christ! So many people have been and continue to be richly blessed through your financial contributions and prayers of support. My prayers are with you every day.
With love, in Jesus’ name,
Joseph Tkach
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