Try as we may, try as we might

Bob Moore of Hampton Road Baptist Church posted a lesson plan for this week’s Explore the Bible lesson “Are you saved?”. He proposes using a “try to take this pen” exercise to illustrate an attempt at salvation by works. I have to admit, I don’t understand his recommendation. He says to command the volunteer to “Try to take the pen.” But then he later says, “There is not way to try to take the pen.” Hmmmm. Give a command but there is no way to do it?

To follow up after Bob’s suggested exercise, ask the volunteer who tried to take the pen if he or she was ‘right’ in the way they performed the assigned task. I assume they will answer, ‘yes, of course.’ When they do, that really makes the point! We assume we are ‘right,’ and not just in simple exercises like “try to take the pen,” but in the weightier matters of life, such as our conduct and interactions with other people.

After all is said and done, we want to bring our ‘rightness’ to God and have Him accept us based on it. We bring our ‘goodness’ to the Lord and we want Him to judge us ‘right.’ But this is where we go wrong. If we think we are ‘right’ before God because of the way we live life, we are not living by faith. To the Lord, we might say, “It’s me, the one who prays, who reads the Bible, who does the things you command.” Will the ‘law of faith’ justify a person that thinks this way? No, because faith is not used. Works are used instead. As the ditty goes, “try as we may, try as we might; but in God’s sight that won’t make us right.”

The ‘law of faith’ saved Abraham because he brought nothing to God to try and make a case for his own rightness (See comments by J. David Hoke for a more detail on Romans 4:1-15). We have to come to the Lord in the same way—empty handed. The Lord writes our names in the Book of Life, we don’t. Heaven’s entrance doesn’t have a registry that we sign our name upon entry. God has written our name there beforehand.