Dear Friend: Praying for Healing & Salvation

Dear T,

I have not forgotten you. I prayed for your healing, and I prayed for your salvation.

I was reading Psalm 103 this morning.

Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
(Psalm 103:2-5)

T, all of the religions of the world have two basic things in common.

1. They tell their adherents that they have to be good (or what they think is good).
2. They teach their adherents a group of distinctives that they have to do. For example, Hindus take a dip in the Ganges River, Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca and fast during Ramadan, Roman Catholics go to Mass, and you know the distinctives of the LDS church.

The adherents of all these religions know they cannot be good even though they try. Many of them give up trying. All of them practice the distinctives. The distinctives are easy to do. They can be faithful in their religion without being good.

The Bible, however, does not require goodness in order to go to Heaven, and it certainly has no distinctives that help us to be saved. In fact, the opposite of goodness is a prerequisite for salvation:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:6-8)

You have to be a sinner in order to be forgiven. Heaven is made up of forgiven sinners, not people who did not need to be forgiven.

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit the poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:9-18)

This is a description of the human race. The solution is given in Romans 3:21-26: “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” Notice it is a righteousness from God, not a righteousness to God.

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith.” (Rom. 1:17)

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone.” (Rom. 9:30-32)

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Rom. 10:1-4)

All the religions of the world seek to establish their own righteousness by their definition of goodness and their distinctives. They are not biblical; they are man-made. They do not work.

T, I think you want to be forgiven, and you may want to be healed. I cannot do either of these, but I can point the way.

You have seen both kinds of “born-again” Christians: those who are hypocrites and those who are real. Do not be so foolish as to reject the real because of the hypocrites. That is like rejecting U.S. currency because you got paid with a counterfeit $10 bill.

You may not see me again on earth. We both have deadly diseases. I would like to see you in Heaven.

With love and respect,

Jim Wilson