Tag: grace

We Have Nothing, Unless He Gives It

 

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 “To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

Ephesians 1:6

“We’re all stumbling towards the light with varying degrees of grace at any given moment.”

-Bo Lozoff

We really must come to this point in our discipleship.  Simply we must realize that we can generate nothing at all, unless He gives it to us.  This pretty much strips us of any kind of self-righteousness. His intention is to bring us (screaming if need be) into this place where we are devoid of any self-goodness. It’s taken me almost 40 years of discipleship to realize this.

He alone can transmit goodness. He intends that we come to Him without any extraneous issues.  In the spiritual realm we are always naked, and needing His covering.  But relax, He will never shame or belittle us.  He meets us with an outrageous love that encases us in a holy goodness that we reflect. But make no mistake– it is entirely His!

We have nothing, unless He gives it.

He alone is the deep source of goodness and grace.  If He isn’t there, we will find nothing but a sad desperation.  Without Him, there would be nothing, and a deep darkness that would engulf our souls

His presence makes a deep and solid difference.  He has chosen to enter into our blackness, in order to escort us safely into His light.  He alone, decides everything we need.  And His presence with our souls is all we really need.  He simply surrounds us with a holy kindness. This really isn’t what we expected, but we will take it.

Dear saint, we must make much of His grace.

Dear one, I encourage you to make much of His grace.  No matter your weakness or illness. Your sin is no longer a substantive issue.  He has forgiven you of so much.  You are now His, by the right of sacrifice and a deep love. You should be aware He wants to give you His righteousness, and exchange it for your sin.

Instead of moving away from you, and your sin, He now is moving directly toward you.  His love is waiting for you, and nothing else matters.

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Grace That Teaches

“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,”

– Titus 2:11-12, NIV

The grace of God can be very obvious.  It is seen by all.  It is not sophisticated, and you don’t have to jump through any ‘hoops’.  Everyone can see it.  However, there are a couple of things that will block it.  The sins of ungodliness, and the passions of this world system.  These will short-circuit His grace– sort of like dumping a glass of water on your computer’s keyboard.

It is ‘grace that teaches’.  We learn and take our lessons from handling God’s grace in our own lives.  We receive our education from that grace, it tutors us and we grow in understanding as we understand His love for us. Grace comes, and we receive our lessons, and take notes.  We begin to understand others, and get a handle on life and all its imponderables.

Grace educates, but legalism never does.  The Law has absolutely no ability to educate our hearts and minds.  But God’s untiring mercy explodes on us, and we begin to download all that He offers.  Learning grace expands us, and we develop abilities that we never dreamed of.  We start to do things that amaze us.

One of the most amazing things is that we learn to say, ‘No!’  This is perhaps the ultimate ability–to just say no.  Saying ‘no’ means we will not step in that particular direction.  We won’t travel down that road.  ‘No!’ is in a sense is saying, ‘Yes!’ to what God wants.  Learning to do that is what we are doing here.

Grace is so gentle, and she is a perfect teacher.  She teaches me to be merciful and forgiving.  All that she has, she imparts to me.  When I receive from grace myself, I become gentle and joyful and kind.  When I receive from grace, I become a much more fulfilled Christian.

There are things that work contrary to this.  Ungodliness and the lusts made by this world’s system.  The dynamic of grace somehow gets “turned-off” when we get diverted into these sins.  And this happens all the time, it seems.  But developing a self-controlled, upright and a godly life will give us a deep and eternal perspective.

We are not created for living in a garbage dump.  We are royalty–we are meant to rule and reign, as Kings and Queens.  We have been made ready by Grace for this place.

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Low Sodium Christians

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Colossians 4:6

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”

Luke 14:34

 Our distinctiveness for God is first evident in our communication.  The way we talk is the primary way we share; and it’s in the tone we use, the inflection of our voices, the vocabulary we utilize, and the way we articulate.  And all of this is communicated in just a few seconds of time.

We should be aware that when we say something it is instinctively and instantly examined. People, deep within want to know its veracity and authenticity.  But the above list is lacking one vital thing– grace, pieces of it, that break off and sprinkles all over our words and thoughts.  We added it all to our conversations, like salt on ‘french fries’.  This takes a ministry of grace, and we ourselves are made into a direct witness.

But not everyone of us is articulate, or gifted to speak.  But we are all salty!  Each of us has a savory presence of grace.  Every believer has it.  I’ve gotten to know two deaf brothers at my church.  They are sometimes neglected and avoided.  (But I think that is just fear.)  They use a ‘sign language‘ with gestures and hand motions.  They are actually quite articulate.  One of the young men has an opening door to Russia to do evangelism.

I guess I’m a bit taken aback by this.  A man who cannot hear or speak being used by the Holy Spirit in this way.  He jokes about being the ‘first evangelist to the deaf community in Russia’.  He is an inspiration to me.  My issue is with mental illness.  But handicapped people do quite well, they are particularly ‘salty’ and you’ll notice the difference.

Learning to communicate with grace is a lot like learning any foreign language.  My wife and I went to learn Spanish at an institute.  We learned so much I felt I was leaking out my ears.  Learning to speak “Grace” will be a challenge as well.  But we have the promised Holy Spirit.  He is the Helper.  He will show how to speak with grace to every person and situation.

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Condemnation Can’t Stay [Guilt]

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“Lord, I crawled across the barrenness to you with my empty cup uncertain in asking any small drop of refreshment. If only I had known you better I’d have come running with a bucket.”

-Nancy Spiegelberg

There can be no freedom from condemnation without submission to the saving life of Christ.  This is a definite and critical point.

Without a faith in Him, we are left with the option of carrying our own guilt.  This is a staggering possibility, and our lives turn to drinking and “drugging” and other things.  We must escape from all this pain and sin.  We are walking out condemnation, and the weight of this is immense.

Much of our life can be distilled from this viciousness.  We absorb it, adapt to it, thinking it will ease up some.  But it doesn’t, and it won’t.  We turn to all kinds of ‘pain absorbers’ looking to cope with this mindset.  There are escapes, and we try them all.  But ultimately we end up with one that is quite imperfect, and we ‘sort of’ become a little numb. Our hearts become numb and hard.

Condemnation twists us and who are in Christ. 

It deforms our spirit and destroys our confidence before our Father in Heaven.  His love is still being poured out, but we have placed a cover on our vessel.  We are blocking His mercy by our unwillingness to be forgiven.  All of our guilt seems a reasonable reaction to the heaviness of our sin.

Humans were not designed to handle guilt, and its “cousin” fear.  When we do try, we short-circuit.  Pain is always avoided, and that ends up corralling us into bondage.  From here, we can still mentally assent to the Bible; we can still have a sense of spirituality.  But it will always be filtered through our sense of condemnation.

Faith in the complete action of Jesus is enough.  Because I believe He carried the full weight of my sin, past—-present—future, I can walk out a free man.  Yes, sin does require justice, it is to be condemned.  But my faith, trust or confidence enables me to separate from the sin that would take me, straight to the bottom.

In this release, we are supposed to live. Freed from every condemnation. You must displace condemnation with grace.

We have the joy of the forgiven sinner, and that really makes no sense at all. 

It isn’t at all rational.  But it is legal, and it is binding.  And permanent.  There have been too many lies, for too long.  Grace is meant to be the most radical concept we have ever confronted.  And truly it is.

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 8:1

 

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