Devotionals

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From Rags to Riches!


Isaiah 64:6...All our righteousness is as filthy rags...
1 Peter 5:4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Revelation 4:10 The four and twenty elders fall down before Him, that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne.

I talked with a lady who seemed to think her good works were going to get her to heaven. She seemed like a very good person. She was involved in many good activities. But the verse in Isaiah that says… "All my righteousness is as filthy rags" kept coming to my mind. I imagined standing before the Lord and He asking me... “Why should I let you into heaven?” M y reply was "here Lord...I have done all this stuff for you. I helped the poor, I loved the unlovable, I kept enduring when I felt I could go on no longer, I read the bible day after day after day, I went on and on with all I had done...and as I held up my hands to give Him my works, I noticed a steam coming from my hands and as I opened my hands the stink of the rags that were strewn through my fingers with all the holes came up in the steam. How do you think rags become filthy? By trying to clean up messes. That is how our righteousness becomes as filthy rages. We are trying to scrub up messes that only Jesus can cleanse with His own blood. And now here I was trying to give God my righteousness, which truly looked like filthy rags.
It made me realize, it truly is only by His dear Son's death on the cross that I will be allowed to enter into heaven and everything I try to do to earn His good grace will only stink and look like a filthy rag that was used to try and wash up all the stink my sins had ever done. I have lived my life in the knowledge of God's grace and the fact that Jesus paid the penalty of my sin. But I believe we all need to be careful not to fall into the 'good works mode'. Yes, those who are saved and believe the gospel of Christ can find themselves on the performance treadmill! It is only by Jesus' shed blood that anything we do will count. Our works done in love for the Lord are the precious crowns we will be handing back to Him. It is only when we accept this wonderful truth that our righteousness cannot get us into His grace. We are prideful people and want to take the credit for what we do. But in the case of our salvation, we can take no credit, nor will we want to when we realize the great sacrifice our Lord and Savior Jesus paid on that cross.

As you imagine yourself on the day of seeing the Lord, be diligent from this moment on to glorify the Lord in all the works you do. As 1 Corinthians 13 expresses that anything we do outside of love is for nothing. When we do this, we have traded a life of rags for an eternal life of riches!
Lisa Smith
08/29/2006

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