One day as Ah Koh, the postman in an inland city of China, handed out letters to the missionary, he was bemoaning his advancing years and feebleness. “Oh well, it won’t be long until I am in my heavenly home,” he remarked.
“But, Ah Koh,” remonstrated the missionary, “you have not accepted Christ as your Saviour, so how can you expect to reach heaven?” The old man responded hopefully, “Surely after I have brought letters to you all those years, one of you will get me in.”
We smile at the man’s simplicity, and yet there are many who are hoping to get to heaven in much the same way—by doing the best they can, not knowing that salvation is not works, but that it is the gift of God. If we could have earned salvation, or meted it in any way, the Lord Jesus would not have died. If we could have finished the work necessary to our own salvation and that of others, He never would have said on the cross, “It is finished.” But because we could do nothing, He did everything. Everything was finished to the entire satisfaction of God, and it is vain for us to think that we can add anything to a finished work. Now we can be saved through trusting, not trying; through believing, not behaving.
Not saved are we by trying, from self can come no aid:
‘Tis on the blood relying, once for our ransom paid.
‘Tis looking unto Jesus, the Holy One and Just;
‘Tis His great work that saves us, it is not try, but trust.
ML 09/03/1961