Our Hope Is In Only In Christ- Justification by Faith Pt 2

 Jesus is your Savior.

Jesus is your High Priest.

These are truths from His Word.

Once you accept that Jesus died to save you, and you ask Him to forgive you for all your sins, for all the transgressions against His Royal law, you are forgiven for all those sins. When a sin you may not have confessed comes to mind then you ask for forgiveness for this as well- all through your life. You even ask for forgiveness for sins of ignorance- the ones you don’t remember. Then you continue on living knowing you have a Savior. You also recognize the sinfulness of your propensities. Your temper, your selfishness, your covetousness, the list goes on. More and more you realize that sin plagues your life. Can you ask for forgiveness for the sins you haven't committed? You don't want to sin, you hate to sin, you loath your inclinations, your failings, your seeming inability to stem the tide of sin flooding your life. Despair threatens to overwhelm you because you fear you'll never rid yourself of falling for the temptations, sinning. Hopelessness, despair, this is what Satan revels in, glories in, longs to bring us to. Once Satan can bring us to the point we believe we are hopelessly lost to sin forever and ever, he leads us into the slow or sometimes quick decline to giving up on ever having salvation once and for all. 

Jesus will forgive us endlessly if our striving for forgiveness is sincere. 

Psa_51:17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

 We must die daily.

1Co 15:31  I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

We must live willing to die for Christ, willing to die to self which is the flesh in us that leans towards sin. Some of us, most of us may not have to face persecution from people wanting to kill us for believing in Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, we are blessed. 

Luk_9:23  And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

When you take up a cross that is a cross to be crucified upon, we are to deny ourselves, crucify ourselves, crucify our flesh.

Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 

Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 

Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 

Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 

Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 

Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

This is our state of being! 

There is no once saved, always saved. There is salvation and enduring to the end with that salvation. We truly do have the possibility of losing salvation once we've accepted salvation. The acceptance is a constant, not finite, but infinitely ongoing acceptance. We need to comprehend that our yielding our self, our flesh to God's truth is something we do always. By faith we have to believe that our choice to be God's is enough, even as we continuously die daily to our flesh as the war goes on and on flesh and spirit. Our hope is in God, our hope is in Christ, not at all in ourselves! 

All through Our Savior's amazing love, now and forever, amen!!!!!!!

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Justification by Faith - J. H. Waggoner

Salvation is two-fold.

1. Salvation from sin. This is a progressive work of Christian life. 

Some mistake and think the work is finished because they feel that they love the way of truth, and have no desire or disposition to sin. But, as before noticed, they may sin ignorantly, and do things which are offensive to God because they are not fully instructed in the right. When these sins come to their knowledge they must repent; and if they refuse or neglect to repent of them, they stand as indorsing sin, and then their relation is changed and they must be counted sins of presumption. And there is place for continuance of this work of increasing in knowledge and reforming in life until we become as perfect in knowledge as our circumstances will permit.

This is growth in grace, without which the believer either remains a babe in the Christian life, or degenerates into a fixed state of formality; for no one has a complete knowledge of truth and duty when first he submits himself to God. It is incumbent upon him to grow up into it.

2Pe 3:18  But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

2. There is a final salvation which is brought unto us at the appearing of Christ; of which, salvation from sin (or justification and growth in grace) is the necessary prerequisite. 

Of this salvation the Scriptures make very frequent mention. The Saviour said: "He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved." Matt. 24:13; the same in chap. 10:22, and Mark 13:13. 

Mat 10:22 … but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Mar 13:13  …but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 

This salvation comes after that which is called "the end."

Paul said to his brethren; "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." Rom13:11. Waiving all question as to "the time" to which he referred, we notice that this salvation did not come to them when they believed. It is a future salvation to the believer.

And Peter speaks to those who were "begotten again unto a lively hope," and who "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1:5. The time of the revelation of this salvation is so clearly brought to view in verses 9-13 that we copy them in full:- 

"Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you; Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which "are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."