Gracious Grace!

Day Eighteen

This morning I read yet another rant against grace, and now I just can’t keep silent any longer.

Grace is the power of God to save.  Power.  To save.  People who want to reduce grace only to a salvation event fail to understand the power behind grace.

On the other hand, people who want to use grace as a license to sin fail to understand the true liberty of grace, and also the necessity of repentance (read Romans chapter 6).

Grace has been granted once and for all to cover our every sin past, present, and future.  That should be obvious, since this all happened long before any of us alive today were born (or our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, etc.).

Grace is also the power to walk in the newness of life, once we’ve repented.  Without repentance, we are not allowed access to grace.  Grace is granted only on the condition that we have repented.  Repentance is literally turning around and going the opposite direction.  If my life didn’t produce fruit that shows my repentance (Matthew 3:8), then I also wouldn’t truly have grace.  Therefore, grace is not a license to sin.

Grace gives us power to live this new life through the same thing that brought us to the cross: love—our response to Jesus’ love.  “We love Him because He first loved us,” (1 John 4:19, NKJV).  Love and grace are inseparable.  Grace was granted to us because of Jesus’ love for us.  If He hadn’t died for us, then we couldn’t say that He ever loved us, and grace would be an unknown and unknowable concept.  So since love and grace are inseparable, if we love Him, we also have the power (through grace) to live a life that is pleasing to Him.

The problem is us, not grace.  Our love is imperfect.  We tend to think of love as an emotion.  Love is a decision—a sacrificial decision.  Love made Jesus lay down His life for us (John 15:13).  If we waver and struggle with sin, it’s because we love the world more than we love Jesus.  And in that case, we need to go back to step one: repentance.  If we don’t do repentance right, then our whole Christian walk is worthless—worse than worthless because it casts a negative light on the Gospel.

But to go too far the other way risks falling back into legalism.  Legalism is a rejection of grace.  It says to Jesus, “No thanks, I can do it for myself.”  For more about how I feel about legalism, look at my recent post: Stop Complicating the Simple Things.

Also check out an article that I found in my inbox today from Charisma News: What’s Wrong with Grace?  Grace gets under the legalists’ skin, but it’s also abused by some.

Thank God for grace—it is Amazing!  God is good!

Step into your Destiny

I believe that it’s with a false sense of humility that many of us excuse our inactivity as Christians.  We think that we’re being meek and humble, when what we’re actually doing is exhibiting is a staggering lack of faith.  We think, “God would never use me to bring revival to my city,” for example, when that’s exactly what He would do if you would only cooperate and obey.  The thing is that it’s not your personality, charisma, or strength.  Spiritual victory depends solely upon God’s ability worked through an obedient vessel.  God is giving you an opportunity to work alongside Him, like a mother baking cookies with a child or a father working on the car with a child.  Does the mother need the child’s help to bake cookies?  Does the father depend on the child’s help in fixing the car?  No, but it’s an opportunity for closeness, and it also gives the child the chance to learn and feel empowered.

Here’s the thing: God is preparing us to reign with Him, “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with him,” (2 Timothy 2:11-12, emphasis mine; see also Revelation 5:9-10).  This life is our training ground for reigning with Him.  But we won’t reign if we don’t endure.  To endure, we’ve got to bear fruit (see John 15:1-2), and we’ve got to overcome (see 1 John 5:4).  And that brings us back to faith.

Back to that passage in 2 Timothy, notice that some will be saved, but not reign.  You might think, “Well, I don’t really want to reign, I’ll just be happy to be there.”  Not me!  I want to reign, but not to be a big shot.  See, I want to sit with Jesus, right by His side.  He will be in His glorified, resurrected body, and me in my resurrected body, and I want to get as much face time with Him as I can.  But that’s not a privilege that will be handed out to everybody.  Only those who endure, bear fruit, and overcome will be invited to sit with Him on His throne, right by His side.  I am running this race to win the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24).  Is there anything else that is worth living or dying for?