Across the world religious people worship all kinds of gods that are not gods at all. These man-made religions involve followers somehow ‘working’ to pacify the god they believe they are serving. People sincerely follow procedures and ceremonies, work their way through daily rituals, give enormous amounts of money and resources and time, but with no assurance of anything. They ‘do’ religion to try and ‘be’ good enough.
We saw last Sunday morning the contrast to this that Nehemiah and his colleagues demonstrated as they worshipped the LORD and it involved grace. Their desire to serve Him was not to pacify Him but to bring Him honour. Their worship of God through temple sacrifices were a daily reminder of their reliance on His promises rather than their performance. Their desire to ‘do’ came from the knowledge of what they were. Their ‘being’ God’s people led to their serving Him.
This side of the cross and with a knowledge of the Lord Jesus, we know very well that He has done everything necessary to draw us to Himself. As those whom He has rescued we are free to ‘be’ what He has made us. Because we ‘are’ church we have the freedom and opportunity to ‘do’ church: loving and caring and helping and praying and giving and listening and serving one another. We don’t have to pacify an unknown God, we serve a loving heavenly Father and in so doing we demonstrate to the world what being loved by Him and saved by grace involves.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” (Rom 5:1,2)
Spencer Shaw