The Hardest Part of the Christian Faith

I had someone in ministry once tell me, “the hardest part of the Christian faith is believing that Jesus really paid it all.” When I asked him to elaborate, he shared that it’s a lifelong process to understand that nothing you do can earn your salvation. Your actions do not retract or add to your salvation - it is all grace.

From my few years in faith, I have found his words to be absolutely true. We have all wondered at some point if we are enough or have done enough to receive God’s salvation. But we can also end up on the other side of the spectrum, which can be just as challenging. Once we come to faith in Christ, we attempt to obey his commands and our pursuit of obedience can easily twist into doing something for our salvation, not from our salvation. Instead of being a response from our saving grace, we start to think that our kindness, our Bible reading, our prayer life, or anything else we do is contributing to our salvation. We either battle receiving grace or working for it.

We should never forsake obedience, but we should understand that the Christian faith is a growing and deepening understanding that Jesus did pay it all. We must never forget how desperately we need God. As Jesus says in Mark 2:17, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” We are the patients looking to God as the doctor. Our sin never leaves us, and that leads us to the feet of Jesus. And because Jesus paid it all, we don’t have to.