gospel of grace
27Apr08
Grace is something you really can’t get enough of. We’re saved by grace, great grace is upon us, and every function of the kingdom of God in the earth today is carried out through acts of grace.
So how does grace work in terms of the “Be perfect”s and “Be holy as I am holy”s of the New Testament?
Maybe grace allows us to obtain the impossible.
Does God create imperfect things?
If our heart is truly to obey the Lord and we strive for perfection then grace allows us to start over in case of a mistake.
His mercies are new everyday. Does that mean we are given a new chance to live perfectly with each day?
Exactly. Being pure and blameless before God isn’t about being perfect, but it *IS* being covered in the Blood of Christ. It’s like Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
It is through Jesus satisfying the unquenchable flame of The Law, by loving his neighbor, and then further by bearing sin on the Cross.
Grace is always available, it is faith and subsequently grace that allow us to attain to the impossible.
1 John 2:1 – “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Then later..
1 John 5:18 – “We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.”
So then, is this a promise that we are able to not sin once we have become “born of God”?
Max’s question is worth going back to. 1 John 1.9 tells us that confessing sin means we are cleansed from ALL unrighteousness. So let me ask both Max’s & William’s questions like this: Once we confess our sin and are cleansed from all unrighteousness, what could possibly drag us back into unrighteousness?
I love this passage:
Hebrews 4.15-16 For we do not have a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Grace is right there in the time of need: right when we’re being tempted. Grace goes way beyond being the get-out-of-jail-free-card, it’s Jesus’ righteousness – which trumps everything we could ever be tempted with. Let it overcome everything you are faced with today >>
wow! awesome discussion, for me it really comes down to how am i viewing myself? the way the Father sees? (the Father sees His Son, therefore i am made perfect, only in Christ) or through my own guilt stricken eyes? sadly, it’s usually the latter, but God is still (daily/hourly) calling me to repentance, changing me, by His Word/Spirit/discussions/Bible study/brothers&sisters. so please keep it going!
to address glens other thought, what could drag us back into unrighteousness?
my experience is when i am not walking in the Spirit and/or fully surrendered to Christ (whether by distraction or straight rebellion) basically i let me flesh back into the game. (believe a lie/a little doubt) that’s how it usually works for me.
So true Joshua.
I think of what even caused this idea of sin in the first place, and even what Satan tempted Jesus with. There was an attack on who he was, and who the Father was. Anytime we lose sight of who we truly are in Christ is when the flesh enters into the equation.
When I fall into unrighteousness it is usually because my focus has gone from being placed upon the Father and instead is on either myself or circumstances outside of my influence (or even within it, but wanting to take control myself rather than yielding it to God).
There’s some sermon message mix that I’ve heard and one of the quotes in it says, “Our greatest enemy is not the devil, it’s the flesh.” (Or something like that..) The reason is that once we give in to the flesh it gives the devil a foothold and invites him in. It is in that cooperation, if you will, that .
What makes this so difficult is that we live in the physical world and we are constantly bombarded (and in many ways more now, I think, than previously) with reminders of that. However to pull something from the “Perfect?” post comment by Steve.
“Paul says that he hasn’t yet been made perfect, but he presses on to take hold of it.
And 2 Corinth 13:11 in some translations says “Aim for perfectionâ€.
So it’s almost like God gives the command “Be Holyâ€, and then we say “Okay God, I place myself in Your process of holyficationâ€.”
It is in that focusing upon the goal of becoming one with Jesus that we are able to receive the grace, that is Jesus righteousness, necessary to live pure and holy before him.
Wow…just typing that out, I can feel the Holy Spirit stirring in me. Praise and glory to the Most High! God you are sooo good.
OK, but here’s the thing…. it really seems like “holyfication” is way more about our limited experience than it is about what God describes in the new testament.
Our experience tells us we sin continually, just hopefully less and less. People have actually made doctrines out of that assumption. Meanwhile everywhere the new testament talks about us, it’s calling us “holy ones.” We have been made holy. We were once darkness, now we are light in the Lord. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of new testament verses highlighting the contrast between what we once were, and what we now are.
Hebrews 10.14 is the only place you find the verb tense of “those being made holy” – and it refers to the constant influx of new people into Jesus’ perfect holiness, not to a constant increase in our personal holiness. And when you look at the greek for 2 Corinthians 13.11, there’s really no way to justify the added words “aim for.”
Could it be that our experience has taught us to make an elusive goal out of what God wanted us to have as an active lifestyle? In other words, have we made grace all about damage control…and forgotten how grace functioned in the Matt-Mark-Luke-John-Acts life of Jesus?
Thank you for pointing that out to me. You are such a blessing Glen and I receive what you said.
This posting is tying in so closely to the other.
Since reading that other post I’ve been asking for the grace to yield myself. I’ve been asking for the impossible because I want to live as Jesus did, in that “miracle life” of complete and total dependence…
There it is – that’s where miracle life takes place.
We pray all kinds of crazy prayers…gripes and complaints, brilliant ideas we’re trying to convince God of, stuff God’s already done and we don’t even know it….
Meanwhile God will take a simple but deeply heartfelt “I yield myself to you completely Holy Spirit” or “Lord take complete control of my life” or “there’s nothing you can’t have in me Father” and scoop you right up next to Him. You get to feel Him like never before, know him like never before, trust him like never before! All of a sudden you’re living right there at the throne of grace with everything you need is getting supernaturally supplied to you.