Who Needs Jesus? Part 5 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

We really only think about death in physical terms, not spiritual. But we are told that we are born spiritually dead, we were born with a broken relationship with God. We all need new life, we all need salvation. In this 5-part series, John North looks at what it means to need Jesus.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Ephesians 2:4-5 (NLT)

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Transcript

I want to help you focus your life today on your relationship with God. We’ve been asking the question this week, who needs Jesus?

We started off by pointing out that when the first man and woman here on earth, who had a wonderful relationship with God, rejected God and disobeyed him, something basic changed in their nature that broke their relationship with God.

And that brokenness was inherited by their children and their children and all the way down to us, so that every person has a tendency towards selfishness and doing what is wrong, what is focused on ourselves. We don’t have to teach children to be selfish, do we? You have no course with your kids that teaches them to steal the other kids’ toys or to shout in anger. No, it comes naturally.

And as we grow up, it becomes more pronounced, sometimes more cultured, more hidden by the expectations of society, but still it’s there, isn’t it?

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There’s something in us that draws us away from what we know is right and towards selfish action and attitudes.

Well, how are we going to change that? We need Jesus. Only he can change that with his life in our lives. Only he can restore to us a wonderful relationship with God.

Because of our disobedience and our constant doing of things that we know goes against our conscience which God has given us to show us when we disobey Him and dishonour Him.

Because of that, we are guilty before God’s judgement. God is the ultimate judge of this universe, and one day we’ll stand before His judgement, and we’ll have no excuse. We will have broken His laws so many times, and we know even now no one needs to convince us that we have been selfish and destructive in our lives. We’ve spoken to people in ways we shouldn’t have spoken to them.

We’ve acted in ways we shouldn’t have acted. We have ignored God in our lives.

Well, what’s our way of salvation? How can we be rescued from that situation? Only by God, because there’s nothing we can do.

But God has done something, and I would just want to read that passage with you again today, verses 4 through 10 of Ephesians chapter 2.

But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. You’ve been rescued from that by God’s grace. And he raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, for by grace, not because you deserve it – but by grace, you have been saved through faith.

You have to trust what God has done for you. You have to receive it.

By grace you have been saved through faith, and even then, though it’s not of yourself, it’s the gift of God, not as a result of your own good works, so that no one can boast, for we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Your good works don’t earn your salvation, but God wants to change your life, change your inner heart attitude, so that your life ends up being something that is full of meaning and value.

That your life is lived for God and for people. Only God can work that deep a change in your life. It doesn’t change by just receiving a bunch of laws from the Bible. It only changes by God’s work in your heart. You need to come to Him and say thank you for what you have done for me. I didn’t deserve it, but you did it for me, and I receive and accept your forgiveness because of Jesus Christ, and I want to live my life for you now.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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