... to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked,
his faith is credited as righteousness.
(Romans 4:5)
... it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.
(Ephesians 2:8-9)
Before you knew God, you were completely wrecked, unable to do a thing to save yourself, and God's enemy. When Jesus came and died for your sins, he did everything you could never do - he made you totally and completely right with God. The way to become right with God is simply to accept this as a gift.
There is nothing that can be added to that, and there is nothing you can do to take away from it. Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished" (John 19:30). He did what he came to do, and he did it perfectly and completely.
What did Jesus come to do ? In Matthew 1:21, Joseph was told, "He will save his people from their sins." He came to establish the New Covenant spoken about in Jeremiah 31:31-34 (replacing the Old Covenant, the Law of Moses):
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time", declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, `Know the Lord', because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest", declares the Lord.
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
So why would God give them the law if it was doomed to failure from the start ? Surprising as it may sound, the idea was for it to fail. Paul explains the purpose of the law in Romans 3:20:
And so now we are freed from the law. The law, even thought it was good, put us under a horrible curse because we could never live up to it (Galatians 3:10). It was an oppressive burden to us, a "yoke we could not bear" (Acts 15:10). When Jesus lived and died for us, he took us out from under the law and put us "under grace" instead (Romans 6:15).
Being freed from the law means that we are no longer right with God because of anything we do, we are totally and completely right with God on the basis of Jesus' life and death alone. There is nothing we have to do to become acceptable to God, we are already accepted. And just as importantly, our sin does not ever make us any less accepted either.
The Old Covenant says, "If we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God ... that will be our righteousness" (Deuteronomy 6:25). It was all based on our performance. In the New Covenant, Jesus is called "the Lord, our righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6; see 1 Corinthians 1:30). He is the one who makes us acceptable to God. The law is all about striving to attain a "righteousness of your own" (Philippians 3:9). In the New Covenant, you don't work to become right with God - it is a gift which you receive from God just by trusting him:
The truth that God has done everything and we contribute nothing to our own salvation has often been forgotten or distorted throughout history:
The word of the gospel - after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by the perfection of your own bootstraps - suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started.
Grace was to be drunk neat; no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale.
(Robert Farrar Capon, as quoted by Ken Blue in Healing Spiritual Abuse, p.118)
It is vital to understand that God's acceptance is a free gift, and does not depend on what we do in any way. If you try to live in any other way, you will find yourself unable to live the Christian life, because you will be putting yourself under law. The law actually provokes sin (Romans 7:7-9). The more you try not to sin, the worse you will get !
God's grace takes all the pressure off, and sets you free completely. You live enjoying God's unconditional acceptance, and you are free to do what is right and obey him without the threat of punishment and the heavy weight of condemnation if you fail. You are free to get up and start again with no record of your sin when you stumble.
The kind of freedom God has given us is incredible. It is a visible freedom - Paul refers to some false brothers who came to "spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 2:4). In Galatians 5:13 he says, "Do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love." What kind of freedom is that, that could potentially be used to indulge in sin ?? It would not be a good idea to do that, but it is the kind of freedom that would make that a real possibility (see also 1 Peter 2:16, 1 Corinthians 10:23-24).
There are plenty of reasons not to sin - but it will never make God want to reject you. Your acceptance is signed, sealed and completed. He says you are righteous, and so there is no more discussion. The sin issue is completely settled before God, and Jesus has paid your debt fully. When he died on the cross, he didn't do only half a job and leave the rest to us ! The whole point is that we were hopeless, helpless and powerless, and so Jesus came and did it absolutely all for us - so there is nothing left for us to do to get or stay right with God.
Now the reasons not to sin are all different. Instead of trying to avoid punishment and condemnation, we are free to obey just because we love God. Since we are free to fail, we can pursue the high calling of living like Jesus did without fear of what might happen when we stumble along the way.
We also avoid sin because it just isn't good for us. Ken Blue says you don't sin for the same reasons you don't stick you lips in a meat grinder: it is painful and disfiguring ! It also wrecks our relationships with other people. There is nothing good or helpful about sin.
Jesus came to save us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). If he bought forgiveness for us but we were still slaves to sin and controlled by sinful desires, that would hardly count as "saving us from our sins". One part of the New Covenant is that we are made right with God so that our sins are wiped out and he will never count our sins against us again (Romans 4:8). The other part of the New Covenant is that God promises to do a change in us too:
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you" (Ezekiel 36:26)
God has actually changed you into a new person. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come !" (2 Corinthians 5:17). You still have the same face and eye colour, but inside you have been made into a new person with a new nature that loves to please God and do what is right. You died with Jesus and you were raised again as a totally new person (Romans 6:4-5).
This is so wonderful, because we don't have to wait until heaven before we can start doing what we were created to do. We were created to walk with God and to love him and serve him, and to love people, and now we can do that. And when we fail - even badly - we can treat it as a step in the learning process and get up and try again.
In summary - the law is no longer hanging over our heads. We have been given "rightness with God" as a free gift. Our obedience does not make us any more right with God, and our sin does not make us any less right with God. We are free to obey out of pure love for him.
Not only that, but sin no longer has control over us. We can start to do the things we were created for. And we do them out of voluntary love for God, not because of the threat of the law. When we stumble, we can get back up again straight away and try again, because we will never be punished for our sins.
And don't let anyone tell you any different !
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of
slavery.
(Galatians 5:1)