Our efforts are in vain.

James Boice writes: “The only way anyone will ever be saved is if God operates entirely apart from us and for his own good pleasure”

We get caught up in our own efforts , and believe we can save ourselves, a foolish belief we at our best break God's law daily no matter how hard we try.

How could we earn our salvation if we cannot keep simple laws, like love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body and souls and love your neighbors as yourself?

Thank God that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no man can come to God the Father except through Him.

Don't you see , He gave us the way, Himself! God says I know you can't keep my laws, sin has a stranglehold upon you,it is deceiving and enticing, but I made a way, put your faith in me, I will deliver you out of death into life.

Those who believe that all “good people” will be saved, no matter their religious affiliation believe in man's works, that will keep you from Jesus!

There are none good, we need to be constantly reminded of this, and none of us would love or even serve God apart from His grace.

Titus .3.3-11 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

The poison of knowledge's power

America we have a problem,a God problem we have fallen for the same lie the devil used upon Eve that surely we would not die once we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

If we as believers have an accurate picture of God then that will lead to a life of holiness : as a matter of fact that  is vital to everything. AW Tozer said this all the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with that overwhelming problem of God: that He is: what He is like: and what we as moral beings must do about Him".

We pursue knowledge believing that knowledge is power believing we will be like God because we know all things, we have been deceived ,need I remind you of the most knowledgeable and wisest of all cultures have been destroyed by their pursuit of knowledge and power, Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome ,Europe, Germany, all have fallen to the wayside.

Each had more knowledge than the other, yet today they are but shadows of their former greatness.

We have knowledge today at our fingertips a click away you can know just about anything, but yet we are far from the truth we are far from God our creator we believe our selves to be gods.

Genesis 3:1-7 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Romans 1:21-30, 32 ESV

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.