Is Jesus Satisfied With Me?
Growing up Baptist, my mind runs to the B.B. McKinney hymn “I am Satisfied”. Written in 1926, it had a good tune, but bad theology. First verse…
I am satisfied with Jesus,
He has done so much for me:
He has suffered to redeem me,
He has died to set me free.
Good so far. But then the chorus….
But the question comes to me,
As I think of Calvary,
Is my Master satisfied with me?
That’s the traditional question that’s created so many good works but so little peace.
Let me cut to the chase. If you’re a ‘believer’, ‘saved’ by God’s grace, a ‘follower of Jesus’, then God is satisfied with you. When He looks at you, He sees the holiness of His Son who swapped His purity for your sin, meaning you’re now ‘pure’ in the Father’s eyes. What performance could you possibly render to add to that? Beyond placing your faith in Christ, you don’t have to do a single thing for God to be ‘satisfied’ with you. A lot of folks call this ‘cheap grace’…I say it’s anything but. It seems “cheap” because the price was paid by someone else. I think it’s unconscionably expensive, but overwhelmingly generous and loving beyond imagination.
But my question is “Are YOU satisfied with you?” Knowing the incredible price God paid to give us this ‘holy’ status, don’t we want to at least turn away from the stuff His Son died to free us from? To show Him gratitude? Our obedience gives Him glory, just as we get a little ‘glory’ when our kids do what we want. Because the Holy Spirit lives in us, we know right from wrong. We usually know what He’d have us do in a given situation or relationship. It’s mustering the courage to do the right thing and trusting Him to take care of us with the outcome. That’s the challenge.
I stirred something up with my group when I said “You can’t make God mad”. If I understand Scripture, God’s anger toward sin was cut loose on Jesus on the cross. His revenge for sin….my sin, your sin, all sin, past present and future poured out on His own Son. For stuff He didn’t even do.
The birth of Jesus put all this in motion. Imagine the Father’s angst as the day approached when Jesus…the Son who’d been there at His side forever….disappeared from heaven and showed up in a stable. Knowing how hard we try to keep our kids from having to suffer, imagine the knot in God’s stomach when, right off the bat, He sees Herod kill thousands of innocent babies hoping Jesus would be among them. And that was even before He started threatening the political and religious establishment with His message of redemption.
All because God wanted to be satisfied with us.
Thanks to Jesus, He is.
Question: Do you really believe God loves you regardless of your performance? That He’s satisfied with you? Tell us here
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Responses (11)
Regi, I love this latest post. I’ve saved a long time, but sometimes forget about grace and try to keep the scales even. I’m reading a great book titled “The Cure”, written by Lynch, McNicol and Thrall. Your post reminds me of the battle we Christians face, navigating between the room of good intentions and the room of grace. My prayer is that I accept what Jesus did for me and His free gift of grace is all I need. In return, Jesus wants nothing but our Trust in Him. Our behavior will change when we trust as opposed to earn.
Hello Regi Cambell. Thanks for sending this to me. It really resonated with me but I am very confused. As you can see below I have laid out concerns I have that tell me by way of the Bible that what you say about Salvation is incomplete. I hope that you are right but the Bible says that your not.
Q.#1: Wow! I certainly hope you are right that God has saved me regardless of how I live my life/ If I understand you correctly the formula for salvation = believe, repent, ask Jesus to be your personal savior?
Q #2: Wow! If you are correct then I have little to worry about as Jesus by his Passion to care of me, correct? And since I have been Baptized and already accepted Christ as my Savior then all I have to do to reach Heaven is [just before I die] is to be sure again to believe, repent of my sins and ask Jesus to be my personal Savior [again], correct? Even if from now until death I do nothing more than that, right?
Q #3: Woohoo!, if you are correct then all of the work I have been doing such as praying fervently and reading the Bible 3-6 hours a day, leading Bible study groups, teaching Sunday school, volunteering at homeless shelters, contributing financially to groups working with the poor, striving to live a moral and just life, etc. is really not necessary?
Q #4: Based on what you have said then there are a lot of Christian people in Heaven and hardly any Christian’s in Hell, right? I sure hope you are correct because that means I personally have very little to worry about. I have always thought that you had to do the following to earn salvation: believe, repent, ask Jesus to be your personal savior and stay obedient to Faith, i.e. do good deeds/taksks/duties/works, done in grace, by the gift and power of God, whose grace works in us (cf. Philippians 2:12-13
Q #5: Why do you not think or believe that in addition to believing, repenting, and asking Jesus to be your personal savior that a person doesn’t also need to perform the tasks that God wants them to when the Scripture’s clearly say that one must? Not to be argumentative for argument’s sake, however when I read the Scripture’s I don’t see quite where your formula exists except only in Ephesians 2:8-10. When I read many of the other Scripture’s (some are listed below) I clearly see where repentance and conversion are essential but so is the “obedience of faith”, i.e. also performing tasks, work, jobs, etc. done in grace, by the gift and power of God, whose grace works in us. In addition to Ephesians 2:8-9 and Philippians 2:12-13 already mentioned Please read the following Scripture’s to aid in answering my question, thanks and God bless.
Matthew 7:21-23; 19:16-17; 24:13; 25:34-36; Luke 6:27-36; 6:46-49; Romans 2:6, 13; 5:2; 8:25; 11:22-23; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Galatians 5:1-6; Hebrews 10:24-29; James 1:22-25; 2:14-26; 2 Peter 2:20-21; I John 3:7; 5:3.
whew. a friend shared this site with me after we discussed my lack of faith. what i have seen so far does not help much. hopefully the future ill bring something other than ‘this is the way it is, because i say so…’
The authors certainty in their interpretation is more than a little off-putting to me.
Do you really believe God loves you regardless of your performance?
Yes, God loves me in spite of my human inadequacies. God has given each of us certain gifts but a gift is expected to be given away. When I share my gifts with others, I honor HIM, and whatever I do, God expects me to give my best; when I do I glorify HIM thorough my efforts.
Mr. Maddox makes some sense to me, but what about the obvious corollary that if you do not accept Christ and the bible, you are not saved, no matter how good you are in thought and deed? that sounds a lot more like a rule made up by men than any god i can imagine or accept.
That’s really shdrwe! Good to see the logic set out so well.
Hey Richard!
I completely understand where you are coming from. I was raised Catholic and for the longest time I felt that the only way I could ever get God to accept and redeem me was to work for it. To give my money, to volunteer my time, and serve the needy, widowed, and homeless. And I lived that way for a long time. Always trying to prove to myself and to God that I was worthy of saving.
But after 18 years, I one day came to the realization that what sets Christianity apart is that it asks nothing of us. It gives everything, and asks nothing in return.
Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
A gift from God must be a heck of a lot better than a gift from anyone else. And If I am saved and redeemed for the wrath that Christ received on the cross then I no longer need to work my way into His good graces for I live there now. So to answer your Q2, yes, I believe that you must believe, repent, and accept Christ and you would not have to do anything else until you die.
However, Q2 does not at all mean Q3 here. All the things you’ve been doing (praying, reading the bible, teaching, volunteering, etc.) are absolutely necessary. But not for your salvation. They are things that need to be done and I am grateful that you are out there doing those things, but those are not what endear you to Christ. Do you think children are endeared to and loved by their parents because they cleaned their rooms, cooked dinner, and mowed the lawn? No. The parent feels grateful and astonished that the child would do those things to help out, but it does not make them love the child anymore. And why does the child do those things for the parent?
To receive praise and gratitude and love. The only difference between our relationship with God and the relationship with that parent is that we do these things OUT OF love, not FOR love.
Q4, I’m not sure why you would derive that there are many people in heaven and hardly any in hell. Because no matter what, we can never know that until we die. And I don’t think Regi presumes to know that either.
I absolutely believe that works are a byproduct of being loved and rescued by Jesus. He is completely satisfied in us and if we are completely satisfied in Him then works will always flow out of us. If His heart and spirit are truly in us, then we will always be seeking to help the downtrodden, unburden the weary, and more. I do not believe that works are part of a formula that help us get to heaven.
If we are truly children of God, then we no more need to perform works than a child needs to mow the lawn or trim the hedges. If the parents ask, suggest, or recommend we do it then yes, we should obey. But if we fail to do so, it does not mean God will shut the door in our face and force us to sleep outside on the ground.
Take it for what it’s worth, but that’s just my two cents!
Daniel, I couldn’t have said it better!
I just don’t see how He could love me with everything I’ve done. He’s far too great for me.
He’s far too great for every last one of us. Make no mistake: every last one of us. Our sins are repulsive to Him and have totally separated us from Him. Isaiah 64:6 says, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
Back in the day when Isaiah wrote that, the lepers used rags to mop up the fluids that leaked from their sores. That was a filthy rag. We have to ask ourselves: if our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, how must He view our sins?
Leprosy in the Bible is a picture of sin: a terrible, horrible disease. People who had leprosy couldn’t even stay in their communities. They were forced outside of town and had to live away from their families and friends. Outside of a miracle, the person would suffer from it until he or she finally died.
Here’s the thing: God doesn’t hate the person afflicted with leprosy (sin). He hates the sin, but He loves that person. Because of His love for sinful people, He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come here, right down to our own human level, and take our sins on Himself and pay for them. He accomplished that awful payment at the cross. In that way, sin got what it deserved (wrath and judgment), and the sinner was spared and reconciled to God. What does the sinner need to do? Just one thing: believe it. John 3:16 says it: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Hope this helps.
I certainly hope He is satisfied with my life, my witness, my devotion to Him. I see nowhere in these lyrics, a suggestion of requirement for works, only a human trait of hoping He is pleased with my walk.