Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, but dead people live. - CS Lewis
What we preach is not a message of good to great. Jesus did not come to
the planet to make good people greater. He didn't even come to the
planet to make bad people good. This is not an improvement plan. This
is not a remodel. This is death to life. The testimony of Jesus
followers is not "I was an OK person. Then Jesus came along and I put on
a gold necklace with a gold cross and he made me a little bit better.
Now I drive the speed limit, I pay my taxes...all of them. I'm a pretty
respectable employee. This has just really improved me." That's not
the message we preach. The message is "I was dead and now I'm alive." - Judah Smith
Ephesians 2:1-3 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
But God.....Not "but you need to do this"..."But God" made us alive, saved, raised up, seated with....
Ephesians 2:4-10 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
