Pride

Yesterday morning during my quiet time I read this in Matthew:

Matthew 26:33 Peter answered him, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away."

Matthew 26:34 Jesus said to him, "Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times."

Matthew 26:35 Peter said to him, "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!" And all the disciples said the same. "

This passage was one that was discussed in the Idols of the Heart book that I am studying. I thought about it as it relates to the pride of man.

What caught my attention was Peter's pride, his boasting in himself, by saying that He would never fall away from Christ, nor deny Him. With those three "I" statements, he was depending on himself, his own good works.

When God regenerates a person's heart, and saves them, He gives them ETERNAL life. When a person is born again, they can never become unborn. Many professing believers today have the belief that they can lose their salvation. Yet Jesus tells us this in John 10:

John 10:25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me,

John 10:26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

John 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

What they fail to grasp is that they don't stand before God based on their own good works, their own merits, but on what Christ DID. Our pride wants to believe that we can merit salvation by the things we do, but we cannot. I believe the Bible is quite clear on that. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone. All of our righteousness is as filthy rags:

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

We stand before God clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

If we could do anything to merit salvation, to keep ourselves saved, Christ would have died in vain. I thank the Lord that He is the Author and the Finisher of my faith, and that I am kept by the power of God.

Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

1Peter 1:5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.