Grace! |
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"Let me impart a revelation of grace to you. God's grace is truly amazing grace and here I'll show you why! Read this teaching and you'll be singing Amazing Grace right from the heart!" |
Meet the bell boy!I am excited about grace! In my life, grace has so often found me when I was lost. It has brought me from a place of being out of touch with God to return me to fellowship with Him. Grace has so often been to me like a bell boy - the kind you see in really old movies. Like a bell boy, grace has gone into the crowded foyer of my life to find me and usher me over to where God stood waiting for me. Grace did it so sweetly I never felt forced. Grace simply ushered me out of a distant relationship with God into a fresh place of intimacy with Him. I want everyone I know to have an abundance of grace. Grace saves, grace trains, grace ushers people back to God. Grace is the foremost of the all things of God that pertain to life and godliness. 2 Peter 1:2-3 Holy influence is hereNew Testament Greek scholar Joseph Thayer tells us grace is, "That merciful kindness by which God exerts His holy influence on souls and turns them to Christ, keeping and strengthening them." This explains why we talk about saving grace! Grace saves you because by it God exerts His holy influence on you to turn you to Christ. No wonder Paul writes, For by grace you have been saved... Ephesians 2:6 - NKJV Grace saved you from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ. Grace continues to save you because by it God continues to exert His wonderful holy influence over you in spite of yourself and the messes you get yourself into. Is grace having its holy influence over your life? Grace will work in you as much as you let it. It will work both to bring you into godliness in Christ and it will work to keep you there in right living in Christ. Where's Law now?Grace comes to us in Christ Jesus so we can enter into right or righteous living in Him. An opening statement of John in his Gospel declares to us, For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17 - NKJV The law given through Moses remains in force over the ungodly who do not allow grace to bring them to Christ. (1 Timothy 1:9) Yet, for all those who have accepted Christ's sacrifice and His New Covenant it is taken out of the way. Paul proclaimed to the Colossian church, He has utterly wiped out the written evidence of broken commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:14 - J.B. Phillips' translation Elsewhere Paul writes, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Romans 10:4 - NKJV What do we have from God in its place? Grace! We have been placed under grace. The dynamic influence of grace has arrived to replace the stone cold wall of the law. Now, as a result, Paul is able to declare to us, For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:14 - NKJV Grace has been given us in Christ Jesus to bring about in us right living. Are you in training?Consider this following verse and what it tells us about grace, Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Hebrews 12:28 - NKJV Grace is one of the most important of the "all things of God that pertain to life and godliness". (2 Peter 1:2-3) Grace gives us just the help we need just at the time we need it so that we may have life - the life of God - and godliness. Grace positions us to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Grace leads us away from a life lived after the passionate cravings of this world and into a life ever in the presence of God. Paul set this out for us so beautifully in his epistle (letter) to Titus, For the grace of God has broken into history for the salvation of all men. It is training us to renounce the life in which God is banished from the scene, and in which the world's desires hold sway, and in this age to live a well-ordered, upright and godly life, while all the time we are waiting for our blessed hope to be realized. Titus 2:11-13 - William Barclay's translation Grace trains us in life for life! How to face crisis!I don't know about you but there are days when the challenges come in so strong I just want to run for cover. So I do just that - I run for the cover of grace. Grace has the cover you need; it will cover you for every challenge and situation you face. The writer of Hebrews exhorts, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16 - NKJV The Amplified Bible tells us the grace we find at the throne of grace is "appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it". You can overcome any crisis and any challenge by this saving grace of God! The way to face crisis and challenges is in this grace. No matter what's happening, go - in the full assurance of faith - to the Father at the throne of grace. His grace will give you just the help you need to bring divine order out of your crisis and victory in the face of your challenge! God from His throne of grace will grant you His grace. You'll have grace to rely on and grace to flow in. As you respond to grace you'll recognise an enabling of God that gives you a capability - a sufficiency - in every situation. God's practical giftGrace is to have a dynamic influence on us. We need to have a revelation of this. Grace is an intensely practical gift from God. To have grace is to have possession of adequate resources! With grace you've got the means to make it successfully through all that you face. This is why Peter exhorts us, Set your hope perfectly, wholly and unchangeably, without doubt and despondency, upon the grace that is being brought to you upon the occasion of the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13 - Kenneth Wuest's Expanded Translation Do you find yourself faced with circumstances beyond your strength or tasks beyond your talent? Then seek grace and set your expectation upon it. Come - through Jesus - before the throne from which grace is granted. From there grace will freely flow out to you accompanied by faith and love. 1 Timothy 1:14. Andrew Murray tells us, "That grace (God's grace) is for timely help, literally well-timed help, just the special help we need at each moment." At one point Paul lost sight of this grace. In that condition he got to pleading with God to remove from him what he himself actually had the dynamic empowering of grace to deal with. Afterwards, he reported what God said to him. He wrote, And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 - NKJV We have all been through times when we have tried to get God to remove a task or a situation confronting us. What we should have done was employ God's grace. In future, like Paul, we need to hear God saying to us, "My grace is sufficient for you." Paul writes, Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through One, Jesus Christ. Romans 5:17 - NKJV To have grace is to always have what it takes to accomplish the task and to reign in the circumstance set before you. Your response mattersThink about the apostle Paul for a moment. Look what the gift of God's grace had meant to him in his life! He went from being a persecutor of the Church to an apostle of Jesus Christ labouring more exhaustively than any of the other apostles and all this by God's gift of grace! 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 This is what God's grace does! It enriches our lives by delivering us from spiritual destitution and death by turning us to life and riches in Christ Jesus! Why was grace able to accomplish so much in Paul's life? Because he was so responsive to it! It was his responsiveness to grace that meant he could declare, The grace God gave me has not proved a barren gift! 1 Corinthians 15:10 - J.B.Phillips' translation Think about yourself. Grace wasn't a barren gift in bringing forth your eternal salvation. Don't let it be a barren gift in bringing forth that daily salvation you need so you can live in Christ and with Christ moment by moment. If you deprive yourself of grace or if you allow it to be in your life in vain then you can end up in as bad a mess as Jacob's brother Esau ended up in. The Message Translation calls Esau's condition the Esau Syndrome - "trading away God's lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite". See Heb.12:15-16 Grace will keep you free from the Esau Syndrome. It will keep you in that marvellous place where you are ever enjoying Christ's lifelong gift. Be open and yielded to God's grace! Be responsive to it. Go with its holy influence over you. Grace will bring forth "godliness with contentment" for you. Be exuberantly thankful about grace's glorious work in your life! Amazing graceI find in my life that if I want to remain vitally united with the Lord then I need an ongoing spiritual maintenance program in my life. I have to drop off hindering things that are clinging to me or tripping me up. I have to add things of God that will facilitate better, more Christ-like things happening in my life. I need adjustments made to some things and other things need a good clean up. I thank God, in all this and for all this, He gives more grace. As long as I receive it and I am responsive to it, then grace turns me to God and the things of God. It urges me to resort to Him and His power instead of my own fragile resources. It draws me back from the brink of sin or disaster and stirs me to walk with Him. The apostle James tells us, He gives more grace. Therefore He says, "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble." James 4:5 - NKJV God's grace is there for us the moment we acknowledge there is no way we are going to make it without God's help. More grace is made available to us the moment we realise that the challenges confronting us - either from the outside or the inside - are greater than we can handle. Grace flows abundantly into our lives the moment we confess we haven't got what it takes and cry out, "I am helpless to help myself. God help me!" Who does God give more grace too? The humble - those who acknowledge, "I am helpless to help myself. God help me!" Come before the throneThe principle place from which we obtain grace is from the throne of grace. However, grace has an opportunity to flow into our lives from a number of sources. For example, Paul began one of his letters with, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 1:2 - NKJV Paul imparted grace to his partners in the Gospel. It is marvellous to me to realise you and I can have a relationship together in grace. We can be connected to one another through the Gospel and in this special relationship know God's grace flowing among us. I can have grace you can partake of and you can have grace I can partake of. We can partner in grace as we partner in the Gospel. Paul wrote to his Gospel partners, Both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of my grace. Philippians 1:7 - NKJV Here are three other sources of grace:
There is a marvellous promise of grace in Psalm 84. It reads, For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11 - NKJV Grace is promised - it is up to us to see to it that we position ourselves to receive His grace! Learning from the mannaThe Children of Israel received manna in the Wilderness. (Exodus 16) The manna they received came from heaven to earth daily and all they had to do was gather it in. This gift of the manna given to the Children of Israel teaches us much about our gift of grace. Every day grace is freshly made available to you. Each day's grace helps see you through your day in all health and well-being! Yet grace, like manna, isn't normally prepared to carry over for the next day. In the Wilderness the manna from one day became unusable to the Children of Israel the next! So it is also with grace. God's grace is provided for today and for each day as it comes. Yesterday's grace isn't good enough for today's life. You need fresh grace for today! Similarly grace, like manna, isn't found in the hustle and bustle of the camp! If you want grace you must leave the hustle and bustle of life and go "outside the camp" to the throne of grace. Today go again to the throne of grace! Seek grace early in your day - don't wait till things hot up and you find yourself without it! Receive grace for yourself and your family! Wake up and find grace for today! From a position of peace before the throne of grace receive grace to help in every time of need! May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you! 1 Corinthians 16:23.
Pastor Simon - Cheltenham, UK.
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