SALVATION IS GRACE AND HARD WORK

The Mystic Christ - Chapter Preview

God will not simply give anything to anyone without their working for it. Self-effort and grace are interdependent. If tapas (spiritual discipline) is performed sincerely, you can then see God's Grace flowing into you. Sitting behind the closed doors of a room saying, "The sun is not giving me any light" is silly. Open the door and light will come in. Likewise, open the doors of your heart by removing the obstacles of egotistic thoughts and by developing qualities such as love, humility, etc. That takes effort. Prepare your mind to become a suitable instrument of God's Grace which flows in a never ending stream. Ammachi, Awaken Children, vol. 1
Grace and hard work are like two wings on the same bird - the bird of salvation. Many believe that because Jesus died for our sins he has already paid the price of admission to the kingdom of God for each and every one of us. Therefore, all that is left for us to secure our place in the kingdom is to confess our belief in Jesus Christ. The following scripture is often raised as evidence of this.
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26, NIV
The idea that all we have to do is say, "I believe in Jesus" and then sink into the soft comfortable sofa of business-as-usual, making no effort to remove our own selfishness or to practice the Master's commandments, is nothing more than pure laziness. Such a belief is as seductive and misleading as it is convenient. Prepaid resurrection fits the consumerist disposition of our culture along with instant coffee and drive-through banking. It is a powerful tool for ministers who wish to fill up their church pews and collection plates. Weak-kneed preachers are going to tell us that it's "easy". This occurs in all religions. In this way, our church attendance becomes a spiritual insurance policy. The reasoning goes like this: "If I confess my belief in Jesus and go to church on Sundays, I will get my ticket to heaven." We go about our business oblivious of the many things Jesus said we must do and so we make no progress toward the kingdom. We do nothing to become a loving person. We do nothing to reclaim our lost innocence. The idea of prepaid resurrection and instant faith is misleading and painfully wrong because of the harm it does to the faithful or those of us who would like to be faithful. If the belief in prepaid resurrection fell to an understanding that we must make many sacrifices and undergo hardships to gain the kingdom, the church pews would gather dust and the collection plates would be circulated in vain. However, Jesus was always fearless in his ability to be direct and explicit.

In the preceding scripture, "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies:" does not mean the physical body will be immortalized. It means we will have eternal life even though the body dies. We are spirit and not flesh. It means the soul will cease to be identified with the body and will become identified with the Christ within. It will realize its own inherent immortal being - the I AM. Bodies may come and go but the soul is unaffected. It lives even though the body dies.

"..and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." This line contains the fly in the ointment for those who subscribe to instant belief and prepaid resurrection. Christ is saying we must not only believe in him but we must live in him. And what does it mean to live in him? It means to be merged in God and Christ. In the following scripture Jesus expresses the reality of this merging:
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14:20, NIV
Home | Contact | Site Map
© Copyright 2003 DEVI PRESS All rights reserved.