With All of Your Heart (Romans 8:3-4)
There are some problems that confuse our life of faith. One is them is the problem of ‘achieving righteousness’. People on one side say, “People’s actions cannot achieve God’s righteousness”. People on the other side say, “You need to diligently keep the commandments if you want to achieve righteousness”. Although these appear to contradict each other, they are actually one.
1. The beginning of change in spirit
People say that they do God’s work, but they do it for their own sake and in the way they want. This can never achieve God’s righteousness. Therefore, God wants to change our spirits first. We should open wide our hearts and accept this change. We should let go of our own righteousness and draw near to God’s heart. If we do, we can achieve obedience from the heart, and this will develop into fruits of eternal life.
2. Life by obedience from the heart
We should not accept the words ‘If you only believe in Jesus, you will be saved’ like a mathematical formula and ignore the change you must take on after you believe in Jesus. God does not consider our merit in regard to us believing in Jesus and being saved, but afterwards, He wants us to live by putting God’s righteousness into practice. Instead of showing our own righteousness like we did in the past, God wants us to show His righteousness by obedience.
3. Fruits of righteousness that lead to eternal life
When we were baptized, we ended our past lives and began living as those connected to Christ. When we are connected to Christ, we should not think beyond the church. This is because the church is Christ’s body, and we are members of His body. If we honestly acknowledge that we are sinners before God and entrust ourselves to Him, God will change our spirits and enable us to love the church with all our hearts. In this way, He will help us bear fruits of righteousness that lead to eternal life.
October 10, 2021
Overseer Sung-Hyun Kim
