Human Merit vs Christ's Merit 3

All man-made religions try to cover up their Guilt with works (human merit) of some type (penance, indulgences, praying the rosary, baptism, alms giving, doing your best, enduring to the end). All humanists and atheists try to cover up their sins by pretending that they will never be 'guilty' of any sin before any God, because the only 'god' there is is man. Their covering is Darwin's theory of evolution. In Darwin's theory, no sinner is ever personally accountable to any Creator or Judge for anything; no one is guilty at all.

A study of the world's false religious systems will show that no matter how different their doctrine may be, they all have One major tenet/rule in common. One and all they affirm that salvation must be Earned, you have to Pay, that it is by human works, that sinful man must do something or suffer in some way to merit the favor of God. Human merit is a damnable thing. Organized religion believes that you are your own savior, they say, "No one else is going to save you but yourself." This is the foundational belief and undergirding of just about all organized religion on the planet. They say, "You have to help save yourself, you have to live IT." Yeah, you can believe in something or somebody, but you've got to help save yourself. This self-righteous attitude is part of the depraved deception of human nature.

Man thinks he can be his own savior, and that he is qualified and capable of saving himself. This is a very convenient thought, because now you can get rid of God. If you are your own savior, then you don't need God or His Son's blood and righteousness at all. This is a gross insult to God and His Son.  Jesus lived IT for me perfectly.  A religionist can never tell you exactly what IT is that you must live, and that same religionist has never lived IT a day in his life.  Jesus obeyed every jot and tittle of the divine Law every day of His life; the sinful human nature residing within every man could never do that.

A personal, accountable relationship with the living Savior is no longer necessary, because you've applied for the job of redeemer and savior of your immortal soul. Salvation for you is whatever you think it is. You do what you do because you think it is right, God is not in your thoughts at all. You say, "I don't need God, His Son, the Bible, I don't need anything that I can't control, or that may try to control me. I don't want to have anything to do with a God or religion that I can't choose for myself. I've heard all about that Jesus - I don't want him." Some people want to cover all the spiritual bases, go through the motions, but they don't want to be spiritually obligated to the omniscient living Lord Jesus Christ and the omnipresent Holy Ghost. You say, "you know, that's just your interpretation." This is the essence of the sin nature - "I want my own way, and I want to be my own savior." Man doesn't want to have anything to do with a God, that he doesn't choose for himself. The natural man (evil human nature) doesn't want the words of God to have any authority or control over his life.

Now remember this:  Do-gooders try to save themselves and end up in the Lake of Fire, because they thought they were too good to need the real Savior. But the No-gooders are the poor and needy that Jesus receives and saves, because they admit they are no good and in desperate need of a Savior. They cry out to the Crucified God for mercy. Seek the Savior, trust Him, call upon Him in truth, or you'll surely perish in your sins.

Religion is a set of man-made moral standards adopted by any group of unsaved men who are seeking to justify themselves and merit the favor of God by their own self-righteous works (Isa 64:6). The sum total of all religions is that you have to DO something yourself to be saved, and you have to DO something yourself to 'stay' saved. And if you think any different, you are either dishonest or a hypocrite - or both. The first thing that any man must be saved from is his religion, and then he must saved from his own deceitful, righteous self. The hardest thing to ever convince a man to do is to let go of self-righteous religion.  If you don't believe me, try to get a Mormon or Church of Christ to simply believe on the Lord Jesus without any of their works.

But the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, with its radical concept of salvation by faith alone in God's blood, is set uniquely apart from all other systems. *Romans 5:9; Ephesians 2:8-9*  In the Gospel, "works" do no result in salvation, they result from salvation.  All men are sinners, sin is a coming short of the glory of God. Sin is a failure to meet the divine and holy standard of God Himself.

Many religious people run to their church as a protective shield, they choose to let 'IT' deal with God for him. All the poor sinner has to do is attend 'IT,' obey 'IT,' and pay 'IT,' and he can ignore all that God says in the Bible. All agnostics hide behind ignorance, pretending that they are innocent, because they didn't see the highway speed limit sign. They hide behind lack of knowledge after being told that they all have knowledge. That isn't all. They also have enough knowledge to know how to get saved, but they refuse to seek and trust the Crucified and Risen Creator.