And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” – Job 1:8
One of the first things that we notice about Job is that God allowed Satan to harass him. Satan seemed convinced that Job liked God because God had given him so much and had protected Job from the struggles of this world. In fact, sometimes it seems that people are happy Christians precisely because life seems easier when we acknowledge how much God has blessed us. And this IS true: God has blessed us a lot and we benefit from seeing His blessings. HOWEVER, our affinity for God ought to be because He is great and good, not because of what He does for us.
I hear some preachers speak as if our allegiance to God is what earns us His good grace. This is of course ridiculous. We cannot and do not earn any of God’s grace. Rather, He is gracious on His own, not in return for our efforts. It is true that we suffer from our own sin, from the sins of others, and from the brokenness of this world, but it is not true that we earn blessings by our acts.
In a church meeting years ago, someone said, “God will not bless us unless we are faithful to Him.” This might sound nice, but it is patently absurd. Before any of us did anything, God sent His Son to rescue us. Jesus did not come because of our faithfulness. He came because of God’s covenant faithfulness. If Jesus is your Savior, then you know that you could not possibly have done anything to earn His favor. God did not send His Son in response to your faithfulness. God sent Him because of your unfaithfulness – He blessed you despite your foolishness.
This brings us to the question of what it means to “accept Jesus into your heart.” So many people have distorted what the Bible teaches here. They pretend that God is gracious but that you have to DO something in order to receive Him as your Savior. They say stuff like, “Ask Jesus to come into your heart.” They might even expand this with phrases like, “Unless you invite Jesus into your heart, you will not be saved.” We ought to notice that the Bible never uses this language.
Think this through with me. If you say that Jesus cannot enter your heart unless you invite Him, then you are making yourself more powerful than God. Quite simply, if you think that you are powerful enough to let God in or to keep God out, then you are putting yourself in control over Him. This would make you a bigger god than God. I can’t stop you from thinking this way, but I can point out that someone who thinks this way is not regarding God as the one true God.
Some people will lean on Revelation 3:20 as evidence that God requires us to open the door of their heart for Him: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me.” The main problem with such a position is the context of the verse: It is Jesus speaking to the church in Laodicea, not to individuals about their own salvation. Rather, God is making it clear that a church that ignores Jesus is neither in fellowship with Him nor in fellowship with each other – and is therefore not a witness to the love of Jesus Christ (faithfully knocking at the door).
Some people will use John 1:12 to make the same argument: “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” They suggest that “receiving” Jesus is akin to letting Him into their heart. However, the context makes it clear that we receive Him through faith in who He is. Said differently, the passage says that Jesus came into the world and lack of faith prevents people from seeing this reality. In other words, we “receive” Him through faith, not through an invitation on our part.
How do we have such faith? God gives us faith as a gift. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). To argue that we must “receive” the gift (ask Jesus into our heart) in order for it to be given is to put the burden and control back in the individual’s hands. The Bible does not teach this. God allowed Satan to test Job, not because Job on his own was up to the task, but because God had given Job the faith to persevere. This week, see that God does all of the giving. Through faith, you see this beautiful reality. You need Him, not vice versa.
