Now God has saved you, friends. Now, don’t misunderstand me. When God saves you by grace, He doesn’t save you with the idea that He puts you in debt. Grace does not put anyone in debt. And I personally disagree with that song that puts words in the mouth of the Lord Jesus He never said. “I gave, I gave my life for thee. What hast thou done for Me?” What He’s saying is He saved you by grace; that doesn’t put you in debt. But He did save you, didn’t He? And don’t you love Him? And now you are to do this. Why? Because it’s your duty? No, because you love Him. Because you love Him and you want to please Him.

God is speaking now to the nation, and He’s saying to the nation, “I want you to be holy because I am holy.” God is asking them in their daily life, they’re to be holy. We’re told today “whether we eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” And “if any man’s in Christ today, he is a new creation” or “there is a new creation.” That means that we today, that just more than in little habits, that we’re joined to the living Christ and old things have passed away. We’re no longer joined to a legal system, but joined to Christ and we’re to seek to please Him today.

There is all of this lax and loose thinking about God today. God is only approached as a holy God, and we only come as sinners to Him. Now, my friends, when you have that great chasm between, you have to have something to bridge it. And you and I just don’t have enough goodness to do it. You and I can’t bridge it. The only thing that will bridge it is the one who came from heaven’s glory and died on the cross for us and made a way. And He says “I am the way” and that “no man cometh to the Father but by me.”

It’s not the cross that’s the important thing, it’s the One who died on the cross. After all, there could have been 300 crosses erected there that day of men that were crucified. But it’s the value of the One who died upon that cross for the sins of the world. And to remind us that we “were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from our vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of as a lamb without spot and blemish.” We have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.

There is a great gulf between God and man, but it’s been bridged today. God offers encouragement to man to come to Him, for He says, “For by him we have access through one Spirit to the Father.” The invitation is to “Come.” And the writer to the Hebrews says, in Hebrews 10:19-22, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us.” Now it means we’re going to come God’s way, and if we do, then we can come and come with great assurance.

You don’t make the terms to come to God. God makes the terms, my friend. God says that your righteousness and mine “is filthy rags,” and He won’t have it. He won’t accept it. He won’t take it. And a great many people think that the righteousness of God is just a projection or a little higher level of the righteousness of man. Nothing of the kind. It’s altogether different. And the only way you can get the righteousness of God is through faith in Christ. You can’t work for it. You can’t buy it. And you haven’t anything to offer for it. Friends, the way of the cross leads home. There’s no other way. “No man cometh to the Father but by Me.”

You don’t have to come to Christ. But if you’re going to be saved, friends, you’ll have to come. God has no other way. The Lord Jesus said, “No man cometh to the Father but by me.” You may think that’s dogmatic and narrow—and it is. But the interesting thing is it’ll bring you there. And the other part of it is you don’t have to come. That’s where your free will comes in. You don’t have to come, but if you’re going to come to God, you’ll have to come this way because God has elected this is the only way. In fact, He can’t take your righteousness; He won’t have it. “It is not by works of righteousness which we have done. According to His mercy that He saved us ….” This is His way.

Today whether you eat meat or don’t eat, it doesn’t make any difference. Meat won’t commend you to God. You just eat what you want. But the point is it was teaching Israel, by the way, to make a distinction, and that’s important. They had to make a decision, you see, about this. This one’s clean; this is unclean. You have to make decisions today as a believer, by the way, about your conduct. You have to make a decision whether you accept Christ or not, whether you’re going to study the Word of God, whether you’re going to walk in the way that’s well pleasing to Him. All of this is here.

The word and the walk will identify a child of God today. The clean one, if you please. And today, what a marvelous, wonderful spiritual lesson that you have here. And the emphasis is put upon the study of the Word of God and the walk of the believer; they go together. My friend, the walk of the believer is tied up with the Word of God. And if you’re going through this world, you’ll have to chew the cud, the Word of God, and you’ll have to have that separated walk that only the Word can produce. They both go together.

God was, and He is, interested in the details of the lives of His people. There’s no detail that’s too minute to escape His interest and concern. Someone said to the late Dr. G. Campbell Morgan years ago, “Do you think we ought to pray about the little things in our lives?” And Dr. Morgan, in his characteristic manner, said, “Madam, can you mention anything in your life that’s big to God?” You and I can divide in our lives big problems, little problems. Your problems and my problems are not divided that way before God. They’re just little problems. And He wants us to bring everything to Him in prayer. Worry about nothing; pray about everything.