Never Enough

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

DO YOU EVER feel as if your Christianity consists of nothing more than a list of truths to believe, things to do, and boxes to check to earn God’s approval? In your efforts to pray, read the Bible, give, and serve in the church, do you ever feel that you can never do enough?

Nicodemus, a leader among the Jewish people in the first century, was like many professing Christians today, possessing a measure of belief in and respect for Jesus while ordering his life around the commands of Scripture. He prayed and went to worship. He read and even taught the Bible. He lived a good, decent, moral life, and he was an example to others. Everything was right on the outside, but something was wrong on the inside. Despite all the religious things he did, Nicodemus had no spiritual life in him. This is the curse of superficial religion.

Superficial religion involves a counterfeit Christian life that consists of nothing more than truths to believe and things to do, and it misses the essence of what it means to follow Jesus. Supernatural regeneration, on the other hand, involves an authentic Christian life that has been awakened by the Spirit, truth, love, passion, power, and purpose of Jesus.

So how did Jesus respond to the superficial religion of Nicodemus? He told him, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”^a

What does that mean?

Jesus refers here to a promise that God made to his people through the prophet Ezekiel:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.^b

Such cleansing is a gift from God, not based at all on your own merit, but altogether on God’s mercy. That’s why the Bible teaches that faith alone in Christ alone is the only way to salvation from sin. Faith is the anti-work. It’s the realization that there is nothing you can do but trust in what has been done for you in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Faith is the realization that God’s pleasure in you will never be based on your performance for him. Instead, God’s pleasure in you will always be based on Christ’s performance for you.

Ask God to reveal the areas in your life where your thoughts, words, and actions are not motivated by a genuine love for him. Pray that God would continually change you by his Spirit.