Now we have such confidence in God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:4-6
New English Translation
Adequate, according to Dictionary.com, means: as much or as good as necessary for some requirement or purpose; fully sufficient, suitable, or fit. When it comes to life without Jesus, I think we tend to lean towards thinking of it as “adequate.” We view it as having just what you need without anything more. However, 2 Corinthians disputes this thought process by revealing the truth.
See, what Paul is telling us in this section of his letter to the Corinthians is that without Christ, we don’t even have what we need, we aren’t adequate for life. We’re bumbling through it without the resources we need to truly live. But, when we add Jesus to the mix, we aquire everything we need to live life to the fullest.
You may be asking, “what about those people who don’t follow Jesus and have lots of money and property and etc.?” Well, you may think by all appearances that they’re living life to the full; however, life wasn’t designed to gain matterial objects. God designed man to live in relationship with Him.
Everyone has this feeling that they need something. This feeling is deep within their soul. Many people misunderstand this yearning and fill that emptiness with stuff or relationships. However, that feeling is their soul longing to be in relationship with God. Since we’re designed to be with God, and sin separated us with God, we’ve lost a natural connection that we were supposed to have from the beginning.
What happened to break that connection? As I already stated, sin did. When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they decided that instead of filling themselves with their relationship with God, they’d go ahead and fill themselves with knowledge. The sad thing here is this, before they ate from the tree, they knew no evil. They didn’t even contimplate it, it wasn’t even something they imagined. However, when Satan convinced them that God was holding out on them by them not knowing evil, they decided that they’d try it out. How many times do we do that today? We’re close to God, learning more and more about Him, and then someone else comes along and tells us that we’re being held back, that there is more out there, and then we trade all our time with God for something else.
Now you may be asking, is all hope lost? Am I stuck in this downward spiral? The answer is no. You see, God saw the hurt and the pain that we were caused by sin entering the world and He had a plan to help us through it. He sent Jesus, His only Son, to live among man, teaching them the ways of God. Though Jesus never sinned or even approached sin, He died on a cross, a brutal death and punishment, which He did not deserve but each one of us does. However, the story does not end there. Jesus was buried and stayed there dead for three days before rising to life again.
What is the significance of dying? Well, our punishment for welcoming sin into the world was death. Before sin, man was going to live forever. So, when Jesus, perfect and blemishless, died on that cross, He was doing something that can be understood by examining Jewish culture. God gave the Jews a temporary way of making themselves right with God. By sacrificing a perfect and blemishless lamb, the Jewish people were considered clean and made right with God. The purpose of this slaying of the lamb was to symbolically cover the sins of the man with the blood of the lamb. Thus, atoning the death deserved for the sin. So, Jesus, the perfect and blemishless lamb, made the ultimate sacrifice. By His blood being shed on that cross, He covered over everyone’s sins who accepts Him as their Savior and seeks out a holy life with Him.
The story doesn’t end there, though. Remember how He was raised from the dead? Well, though our sins are atoned and we don’t have to be killed for committing them, death is still a part of living. When Jesus was raised back to life, He was displaying that He defeated death and that everyone who walks with Him in righteousness has the gift of eternal life with God after death. Pretty cool right?
I just want to address one common misconception. There are people who preach grace upon grace upon grace without teaching about the repentence and turning from sin that is required to live with Jesus. Just because Jesus covers your sin does not mean that it’s ok for you to do it. When Jesus forgives you, He expects you to make changes in the way you live to not continue making that same mistake over and over. Jesus’s sacrifice does not making evil behavior ok.
I hope that looking more indepth into how salvation works gave you something to chew on. God wants you to walk with Him and to embrace the promise of eternal life. He wants you to be with Him in heaven for eternity, but you have to make that decision. No one can make that decision for you. Your mom’s, dad’s, grandma’s, grandpa’s, brother’s, sister’s, wife’s, husband’s, bff’s, anyone else’s faith is not enough to make you right with God. You can’t time share faith (plus, from what I hear, time shares never turn out that good). Salvation is personal, cannot be piggy-backed, and takes action. You can’t just call yourself a Christian and believe that you’ll go to heaven. The title “Christian” comes with living with God, actively turning away from sin, and pursuing a deep relationship with God so you can love others as you should (loving others can only happen if you first love and obey God).
I challenge you here and now to examine your life and determine whether you have a relationship with God. If your life does not align with how God instructs us to live and act in scripture, then now is the perfect time to turn to God and ask for His help to alter your life. If you’ve never given your life to Jesus (or if you want to recommit your life to Jesus), I encourage you to pray this prayer with me:
Lord, thank you for making a way for me to be made right with you. I am sorry for my sins and how I have hurt you. Help me to change my behavior so that I glorify you. Show me through your scripture how you want me to live. Amen
If this was your first time giving your life to Jesus or you just realigned your life with God, congratulations! That’s the most important decision you can make in your life. It changes everything. The next steps are to begin studying the Word of God daily, and ask God to guide your life and lead you through your daily living. If you know someone who is strong in faith and their life is consistent with scripture, I encourage you to partner with them in keeping yourself accountable to the Word of God. I am so excited for you and your journey with God.