I’M KEEPING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

  “I’m keeping the Ten Commandments.” Is that the answer you would give if asked how a person gets into heaven? Is this the right answer?

  The Ten Commandments were given by God to show us that we are sinners. “Wherefore the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ…” (Galatians 3:24). The Law is a good thing and has a God-ordained purpose, but that purpose is not to get us into heaven. The purpose of the Ten Commandments is to show us our sin. It is to “…bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).

  God gave us His standards of righteousness in the Ten Commandments so we can measure ourselves. Just as a yardstick accurately measures a piece of wood, so the Commandments measure our lives. We like to look at the commandments we are keeping.  We need to see the ones we are breaking. “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).

  Have you obeyed all ten commandments every day of your life? If not, you are guilty of breaking God’s law. God said, “…Cursed is everyone that continueth not in ALL things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10).

  If you were dangling over the Grand Canyon by a chain with ten links in it, you might feel very safe. But if only one link breaks, you will fall to your death. Because you have broken at least one of the Ten Commandments, you have already failed. You are already dead in your sins. You cannot change the fact that you broke God’s law. You are a sinner and under the curse of God’s law.  “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). Christ was nailed to that wooden cross of Calvary to be your substitute. Jesus Christ “…bare our sins in his own body on the tree…” (I Peter 2:24).

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS CANNOT SAVE YOU

  “But that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11). You may be pleased with how good you are living. You may be the most upright person in your whole town, but you have a problem. Your life will not be measured by you, but by God.

  In God’s sight, you have failed to keep all His Law. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).

    “But…  while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ Jesus died to pay your sin debt. He took your curse on Himself. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law:” (Galatians 2:16).

  Salvation is in Jesus Christ. He died for you, was buried, and He arose from the dead as proof that He can give eternal life. “When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high” (see Hebrews 1:3).

  “Be it known unto you . . . that through this man (Jesus) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39). Salvation from sin is not based upon what you can or cannot do; it is based on what Jesus already did.

  “But as many as received Him, to them gave he power” (the right) “to become the sons of God…” (John 1:12).

  Receive Jesus right now as your Savior. Make His death, burial, and resurrection the basis of your salvation. If you ask Him to save you from your sin, HE will.