October 29, 2008

Give God Glory

“Give to the LORD the glory [due] His name; Bring an offering, and come into His courts. Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth.” (Psalms 96:8-9 NKJV)

This writer often proclaims the need for personal holiness as evidence of salvation. Sometimes, people misunderstand that message to say you need to be justified by works. While the actions may be confused with works justification, the motive determines the true nature of a person’s work.

One side cries, “Saved by grace alone”; the other side points out, “Faith without works is dead.” The ability to understand the holiness message requires a person to hear the message in light of the inward man.

One man hears the call to personal holiness as an attack against his security. He is unbalanced in his understanding and rest too much on justification for assurance. Justification is a legal term and one must be justified to enter heaven, but a legal declaration alone will not give peace of mind.

For example, say you are charged with a crime and the sentence is death. They lock you up and there you sit on death row. One day the guard comes along and says, “Great news the governor pardoned you.” However, he doesn’t open the door and let you out. Each day you are closer and closer to the day of execution, but you are still captive. How long will it take before you started doubting the truth of what the guard said?

When a person is justified, he is freed from the dominion of sin (Rom 6:14). The dominion of sin is as death row for the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Therefore, if a preacher or you say the Bible says I am pardoned (Justified) yet you remain in bondage to sin won’t you doubt what was said eventually, and shouldn’t you?

Now the other side of this is equally distorted. The person who says, “Look at all my works I must be justified,” is also misunderstanding the truth. This person is just as likely to be deceived as the former.

Therefore, how the inward man evaluates these two issues is critical. In the opening passage, it says give the Lord the glory due His name. The only way to do that is with a contrite and thankful heart. Glory is given when the believer worships Him in holiness. His primary motivation is thankfulness to God for being set free from the penalty and dominion of sin. He cannot worship God without holiness.

Therefore, a spiritually healthy believer clings to the promise of justification, but never presumes upon justification. He is constantly guarding his heart and fleeing from sin so that his life lines up with the Word of God for the promise is empty if is without power. If God said justification will give you eternal life, and He said justification will remove the dominion of sin from your life, and the later did not come true, would you believe Him for the former? I speak in human terms for let God be true and every man a liar.

So what is a believer to do? Evaluate your motives. Obedience waxes and wanes, but the believer never stops hating sin and loving God. Allow the feeling of separation to have its disciplining effect. Don’t run to justification to justify your sin. Feel the shame of your sin and repent—turn from it and turn to God.