Faith-The Great Equalizer

     I ran across some Scriptures in Romans yesterday, and as I read, a lightbulb began turning on inside of me. I'll try to write it in words, which is going to be hard, as it was an understanding which was being made alive in my spirit. Here goes:
     Paul was trying to explain about how to receive salvation which is from Jesus Christ. Obviously there was a rucus about the "uncircumcized" (the Gentiles) being able to receive this gift since Paul's commission was to let them know that they now could. Before it had only been offered to the circumsized, or the Jews, and with this new revelation, these "Christian Jews" were arguing with him about it. They were insisting that they were the chosen people, and that even if the Gentiles could now enter in, they would have to be circumsized. Obviously, they were putting their proof on a "sign" or in what they did (got circumsized) and not on the finished work of God by sacrificing Jesus on our behalf.
     In the passages that I read,  he is trying to show "both sides" that entering into salvation is by "faith" in Jesus Christ anyway, and not by obeying the law. In this way, he makes the two (Jew and Gentile) "one" or equal, as the same thing is required of both. If,  Paul says, the law was the way, (as it was first established to show man couldn't do it on his own)  one could say that one was better than the other, if someone "did more of the law." (Even though this would fall short, as God says that if we falter in one thing, we break the whole law.)
     What I began to see was the amazing factor of "faith" that God requires for us to receive salvation. It was the one thing, which is the "great equalizer," between all people. It puts all of us on equal footing before Him, for we can be assured that by Him making faith in Him a requirement for all to enter in, not one person is "chosen" based on being better by their own "goodness," nor none denied because of their "badness." Faith in Him and what He has done, which is the focus, has nothing to do with us, except as far as laying our own "goodness" or "badness" down, which we think we did or are, and accepting what He has done on our behalf.
     Seeing this, will help me not measure myself, even after I've received Him, and turn my eyes more upon Him. It will help settle once and for all that I am not measured by Him according to what I have/have not done. It will help me know that as I have gone through the door by faith in Him, that I am accepted-period.
     Getting that conditional love and acceptance out of our system, which we have been programmed by in the world, sometimes, takes many washings, as does seeing others who we think are better than us, and than transferring those thoughts to God towards us. Now, I am seeing more clearly that He doesn't measure us in that way, but He receives all by their faith in Him only.
    
I want to end with a quote I received in an email yesterday which I think aptly applies to what I've written:

"The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His
interests have shifted from self to Christ. What he is or is not no
longer concerns him. He believes that he has been crucified with
Christ and he is not willing either to praise or deprecate such a
man."

- A.W. Tozer

    

When one gets to this place, it seems like we will be free from ourself, and at the same time free to be who we truly are.