One of the most often recurring objections to the Gospel message is that people say that it lowers God’s standard, or that God has somehow “gone soft” on sin. They say that the Gospel message of Grace is an affront to God’s holiness, and they say because of these things, that it must be a false message, and that the Gospel of Grace must therefore be rejected.
You may be surprised how often I hear these things, and whenever I hear them, I respond with a simple statement: that no, the Gospel doesn’t lower God’s standard, in-fact His standard has never changed.
This doesn’t negate the Gospel message in any way, in-fact it strengthens the Gospel message one-hundred fold.
What I want to share with you today, is how the fact that God’s unchanging and perfect standard is actually a testament to His marvelous grace, and how in Christ Jesus today, you don’t need to be afraid of His standard, but you can honestly rejoice in it.
Do you have a nagging feeling that you need to do something for God? A lot of believers have this feeling, and it causes them a lot of distress because they feeling as though they are somehow “letting God down” or not living up to their full potential. It’s actually a huge mental trap to get stuck in – especially because churches always tell people that they need to find “God’s Perfect Will” for their life; and so people are left wandering around and stumbling about looking for this mythical unicorn of “God’s Perfect Will” – I know because I’ve lived that way, and it is very discouraging and disheartening thinking that there is this magical path you need to go down, but not knowing where it is; and having so many Christian brothers and sisters telling you that you need to find it, but no-one seems to be able to help.
Well, if that happens to describe you today, then I’m going to share something with you that’s going to be very freeing… you don’t have to do anything for God! Now I know that right away some people will want to scream blasphemy! Heretic! Yet the Biblical truth is that God only wants you to do two things, and neither of them are what we could consider to be “works of service” He wants us to: Believe, and Live.