Nemo knows, do you?

By Alan Hiu

Have you ever think of those fishes in the ocean? Even though the water in the ocean is salty, the bodies of these ocean fishes are not affected by the sea water. Their fleshes are fresh and not salty. When we cook them for our meals, we still need to put salt to make them tasty. Hmmm… interesting right?

For all I can understand is that, these fishes are alive! They just live out their life as fishes in the ocean! Nobody ever taught them on how to be fishes in the ocean. They just have the ability to pursue life in the ocean because they are not rebellious. They obey the instinct given by the Creator!

Christians are the same. We are righteous because of Jesus’ Finished Work. This mighty divine exchange had already happened at the cross. If we are believers, we are new creations. As new creations, we just need to live out our righteous life, the abundant life given by our Lord.

We do not need to perform to deserve our righteousness anymore! To be radical, we don’t even need to be taught on how to live a righteous life; because the Holy Spirit is already in us convicting us of righteousness! If we are those Christians who still choose to perform to deserve our righteousness, we just promote among ourselves another form of religion. We are worst then those fishes in the ocean, as we are rebellious to our Savior. It is sad to see that majority of the body of Christ today still try to live like a Christian (be righteous) instead of living out their Christian life (righteous life)!

If those fishes are trying to perform to be fishes in the ocean, life will be tough and they will end up dying in the ocean. Look at those dead fishes. In order to prevent them from decaying, they are preserved through seasoning with salt. This kind of fishes is called preserved salted fish! We can try our best to preserve them, but they are dead, being seasoned with salt, laid under the sun to be dried and end up hanging in the grocery shop for sales. Salted fish do not have the life to choose for themselves what they want and where they want to be. They are just helpless and being manipulated.

If we are Christians and still trying to be a Christian, we are as good as those salted fish. Religious people will try to preserve us through their religious teachings, demanding our performance to be righteous. We are being seasoned by their legalistic salt, laid to dry on the stones and bound by our religiosity from choosing what we want and where to go. We are also helpless and live a manipulated life in a religious kingdom…

Our Lord loves to use natural things of this world such as fish, bird, bread, stone, serpent, fig tree, lilies in the field to teach the mystery of His truth. His grace is ever present and fully lavished in our midst. Out of His outrageous grace, He lavishes His Spirit to convict us of righteousness. We need to come to our senses and respond to His conviction that we are righteous by faith not by work. Only through our establishment in His righteousness then we can start to appreciate His grace!

Romans 5:21b ~ so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace can only reign in a believer who is Jesus conscious and righteousness conscious. If we are still full of sin consciousness, we have fallen back into law and we end up trying to justify ourselves through our law keeping and self effort.

Galatians 2:16 ~ knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

Once we can understand that it is all about His grace, we will start receiving His abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness and we will reign in life through this one Man, Jesus Christ.

I do not want to be a salted fish. I do not want to be a Christian being preserved and manipulated by religion. I want to be those fishes in the ocean knowing that they are fishes belong to the ocean and just following the instinct given by the Creator. I want to be a Christian knowing that I am forever righteous and live out the righteous life that my Savior had given me! He had come to give me His abundant life and He had told me that His sheep knows His voice! I just want to click on to His frequency of Grace and receive the abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness.

Even Nemo knows that he belongs to the ocean not aquarium… As for me, I know I belong to Jesus not religion. Hmmm... what about you? Nemo knows, do you...?