The Revelation of Jesus with Rick Sterling!

Rescue~

I just watched a short video of a hunting dog rescuing a fawn. The video opens with a large dog swimming with something in it's mouth. As the dog gets closer it becomes clear that has a small deer in it's mouth. The dog swims to a fairly steep bank on the side of this river, climbs out with the deer in it's mouth, repositions the deer, and climbs the bank where it's owner takes the deer from the dog. The whole time the fawn was struggling and crying, but this didn't deter the dog from saving the deer. Amazing! (https://www.facebook.com/100005876504149/videos/971473856829943)

This is how Christians feel that God will someday rescue them from the evils of this world, and from their own part in living with and in sin.. They look at themselves as a helpless fawn that doesn't know how to get out of the flowing river of sin by itself, and needs to be rescured by a loving savior that will bring them to safety inspite (and dispite) their every effort to get away from their rescurer. They scream in protest "No, no, no, I don't need you", struggling to get away, all the while beleiving that they can do nothng by themselves to get out of their predicament. This is their picture of being "saved by grace through faith"!

But this is NOT how God views humanity. Humans are not helpless when it comes to sin. Jesus came to show us how to defeat the sin in our lives through ovedience the words, teachings anc commandments of Jesus. We are not a helpless simpering creature that has no control over our own salvation. When we learn the words of Jesus we become a powerful force, (as was the dog in the video), able to swim that river of sin to the other side, and climb out on our own into the righteousness that God demands from the people of His Kingdom.

Jesus did not teach 'salvation by grace through faith' as we have been taught. Jesus taught righteousness by obedience to His words.