grace

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Practicing Grace

One of the benefits of being a committed follower of Jesus is that we are a receiver of God’s grace. He pours out His favor upon us because we are one of His children. We can’t earn it by our good behavior or by performing good deeds. His grace and His righteousness were imputed to us the moment we put our faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

Because of God’s grace, we are placed into Christ, and He in turn, is placed into us. (John 17:21-23) Not only does God demonstrate His grace by saving us and bringing us into His family, but He then refers to us as “His children” and “His workmanship”.

This grace also provides us an identity and a oneness with the God of the universe. Added to all of this, we have perpetual forgiveness and cleansing, just for the asking (1 John 1:9). God forgives and cleanses us and then removes the sin from us, remembering it no more.

The depth and breadth of God’s love and grace is unmeasurable. All of this was freely given to us because we are His children. Those of us who have experienced God’s grace will quickly testify that the world has nothing that can compare to God’s undeserved favor. We are truly blessed to be receivers of His grace.

But there is another aspect of God’s grace that we must also recognize. The scripture says that “to whom much is given, much is required.” Just as we have been a willing receiver, we must also be a willing giver of this grace.

When we demonstrate God’s grace to others we are revealing the character of God. This might come in the form of a casserole or a meal, a kind word or a smile. It might appear as a gift of money for someone who is having trouble finding a job. Or, it might appear in the form of forgiveness for someone who has cheated you out of some money. It could come in the form of a helping hand.

In other words, we are to pour out the same measure of grace to others as we have been extended by God. God’s shows His grace to us not because we deserve it or have earned it, but He extends His love and grace just because He loves us. He is not paying us back for something we did for Him. He is not trying to gain our favor because He is setting us up to do some deed in the future that no one else is willing to do. He shows us His grace and favor because that’s just who He is!

Bottom Line

As the old saying goes, “We may be the only Bible someone may ever see.” If we are committed followers of Jesus, God has equipped each of us with the ability to be His grace to someone who needs hope, help and encouragement.

Please don’t waste His grace. Be a demonstration of the grace of God to someone who needs an encounter with our loving Father. Will you join me in asking the Lord to show you those people who need a touch of His grace, and then be willing to be a conduit of His grace to a hurting and needy soul?

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The Battle for Control

For the first twenty years of my Christian walk I thought the greatest enemy to a successful Christian life was the devil. I believed that if I could keep myself from certain sins that the devil would throw my way, then I would be victorious. Therefore I developed a system of rules and standards that would keep me on the straight and narrow. I figured if I could combine that with faithful church attendance, tithing and daily Bible reading, then I would be able to overcome the devil.

After years of striving to measure up to a self-produced standard of performance and rule keeping, I realized that I was attempting to develop my own standard of self-righteousness. It was a standard that God never intended for any child of His to maintain. God in His mercy allowed me to experience a crash and burn experience that I call brokenness.

As a result, I had a major “coming to the end of myself” moment. For the first time in my life I realized that the real battle was a battle for control. My battle was not with the devil, but was with God. I wanted to be the captain of my own spiritual destiny. I wanted to prove my love for God by good performance. I wanted to measure up to what I perceived God wanted me to be or become.

Somewhere along the way I missed a major tenet in the teaching of God’s grace. On the cross God had provided my righteousness in Christ. I didn’t need to measure up to some standard or adopt a set of rules to earn God’s favor. I learned that the cross is not only the place where Jesus died and paid my sin debt, but it is also where He died to set me free from myself.

Picture it this way. There are two aspects of the cross. One aspect is Jesus died to save me from my sin condition (Romans 5:8). The other aspect of the cross is that Jesus died to save me from myself (Galatians 2:20). In other words, God never intended for us to go it alone and develop our own system of righteousness. God’s intention for us is not “I will do my best and then call on Him if I need His help”. But God’s intention for us from the beginning of our Christian walk is to surrender the control of our life to Christ and allow Him to live His live through us. It is not Jesus and me make a majority. It is Christ in me, living His life through me, and guiding me in all the affairs of life. The proper view of the Christian life is reflected in the following verse.

“I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

Notice what God has done for us when we decided to become a follower of Christ. Before I was in Christ I was living for me. But now since my old man has been put to death (crucified), I am a new person. I no longer attempt to live life on my own, by and for myself, but I now live with Christ as the center, director and initiator of my life.

I have discovered over the years that there are many believers who were just like me. They have a genuine love for God. They are sincere in their faith, but struggled in their walk with God. No matter how hard they try to live a successful Christian life, they feel as if they never measured up.

Bottom Line
The battle is not a battle of trying to measure up, but the battle is for control. If you are struggling in your walk with God, let go. You are battling God rather than drawing on what He has already done for you. When you became a believer, He delivered you from the need to prove your love for God by good performance. He implanted you with the very life of Christ and given you the Holy Spirit to direct your steps. And as a result of living by faith you will produce good works and spiritual fruit. As Galatians 2:20 teaches us, “the life I now live… I live by faith.”

Our life is to be lived trusting the living Christ within us to guide and to direct every area of our life. So stop struggling, kicking and trying to measure up in your own strength. Surrender your rights and expectations to Him and allow Christ to manifest His life through you.

Here is a simple prayer that may help.
“Dear Lord I am tired of trying to measure up. I confess my sin of living my life in my own strength. I surrender my rights, my expectations and the control of my life to you. I will trust that the living Christ in me makes me complete and acceptable to you. Just as I have received Christ as my Savior, I now receive Him as my life.”

“For in Him (Christ) all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete.” (Colossians 2:9-10)

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The Remedy For Our Sin

“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16 NASB)

I believe every true follower of Christ experiences defeat and spiritual setbacks in their walk with God. However, I am convinced that our success as followers of Christ is not dependent upon how few times we sin, but how many times we run to God to take advantage of His mercy and cleansing.

We all sin and need God’s mercy. It’s when we draw on that mercy that we develop a dependence on God. By having a sensitive heart toward sin, the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and pushes us toward repentance. Because God understands our weakness and temptation toward sin, He gladly receives our confession/repentance (that’s mercy), and then gives us strength to overcome sin (that’s Grace).

One of the rewarding parts of my twenty plus years of counseling was the opportunity to share this truth with my counselees. I found many believers were carrying around a lifetime of guilt. Their continual failure to measure up to what they perceived as God’s standard brought frustration. Therefore, they just stopped bringing their sin to God for forgiveness because they knew they would fail again. Their concept of the Christian life was based on trying to measure up rather than being dependent upon God’s grace and mercy. We know where that way of thinking comes from; it comes from the enemy of our soul.

There must an effort on our part to “set our mind on things above” (Colossians 3), but beyond that, one of God’s objectives when we continue to fail and fall short is to drive us to Him. He wants us to live every moment dependent upon Him. He wants us to become Holy Spirit sensitive to sin. Every time we sin, every cross word we say in anger, every impure thought, He wants us to immediately be aware that we have offended Him.

By becoming sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, we will find that there is something supernatural at play here. It’s like God is screaming out to us that He is most willing to give us mercy (that is to forgive and cleanse us), and then He will give us the ability to be victorious over future sin.

Bottom Line

Building a “victorious resume” depends upon how we respond to our present sin. God never intended for us to carry around a weight of sin. He has provided a spiritual relief valve if we will become Holy Spirit sensitive by taking every thought captive to obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). That will lead to a greater sensitivity to hearing God’s voice in every area of your life.

The Lord longs to have intimate fellowship with His children. He wants to reveal more of Himself if we will be willing to let go of more of ourselves. It would be good for us to remember the old saying, “the water of life rarely flows through a dirty vessel”.

Begin today by asking the Lord to help you develop Holy Spirit sensitivity toward sin, and then when you sense you have sinned just “come with confidence to the throne room of grace, so that (you) may find grace and help in the time of need.”

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It is not about performance

“Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5)

One of the benefits of God’s grace is its ability, through the Cross, to deliver us from a law mentality. The law teaches us that “in order to “be” we must perform.” The law demands performance in order to measure up. The whole purpose of the law was to reveal our unrighteousness and our inability to perform enough good works to obtain any degree of righteousness, other than our own self-righteousness.

The whole religious system has always been based on a performance based mentality. The religious hierarchy, the ceremonial formality, and sometimes even the educational system feed the perpetuation of a system that teaches or implies that we must perform in order to measure up to some sort of religious standard. Religious rules are always about control and bondage.

This is not a new thing. Jesus encountered a religious system that fought his message of grace and it eventually put him to death. The disciples lost their lives preaching this same message of salvation by God’s grace.

Even though the religious system is still alive and thriving today, I am grateful for a few solid Bible preaching churches that exists to teach the message of God’s grace and Jesus’ provision for man’s salvation.

However, in spite of the good churches there are many believers who still live in bondage to the law. Even though they will quickly tell you they are saved by grace, they live as though they are still under the law. It’s the tendency of the flesh to mix law with grace. Ever since Cain’s attempt to appease God by his offering of vegetables from his garden, man has sought to add to what God has already provided through a blood sacrifice.

Paul gives a great example of this in Galatians 3. Some of the new believers were stumbling in their new found freedom by mixing law with grace. We read about some well-meaning men from Jerusalem who were attempting to persuade new believers that they must add Jewish ceremonial law to God’s grace. Paul says, “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you…I want to find out from you, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”(Galatians 3:1-3 NAS)

Paul wanted to make it clear that salvation and God’s righteousness came by faith and God’s grace. They were made righteous by God’s gift not by any amount of works or law keeping. In other words, man is saved and kept by God’s grace and goodness, apart from any effort of works or law keeping.

Why is this important to know? The Christian life is not about working for God to gain His favor. It’s not about performance, but it’s about living your life in complete dependence on Him. Your Christian life began by putting your faith and trust in God’s provision for your salvation, and it is to be lived by placing your faith and trust in God’s provision to lead you every step of the way and in every season of your life.

The life of faith is about surrendering every aspect of your life to his control. As we abandon every area of our life to Him, the Holy Spirit will lead us in how to give our money, and how He wants us to serve Him. This same grace will also lead you through every major decision and crisis.

If you are trying to measure up to a set of religious rules or standards for God’s acceptance, then remember, you don’t have to “do things for God” to get his acceptance. Because you are in Christ, you are already accepted.

Then fully surrender every aspect of your life to His control and then listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice to lead you. It’s not about performance, but it’s about trusting and resting in His grace. Then, “HE -WILL- DO- IT –ALL- FOR -YOU.”

    “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him…for in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2 NAS)