Tag: God’s Grace

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Freedom!

Liberation from Tyranny or Restraint 

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1 ESV

Freedom is the ability to do what we want to do. What a Christ-follower wants to do is please their Lord and Savior. Christian freedom is not the freedom to do whatever I want, but the freedom to do what is right by God. Freedom for the Christian is the heart-felt, passionate desire to please their Lord.

By contrast, legalism, that is the law, can only motivate through fear of rejection, punishment, and slavish duty. Legalists are fear-based, proud, and guilt-ridden which leads to touchiness, insecurity, pride, discouragement, and weariness. The legalist believes that they are not valuable to the kingdom of God unless they perform well. They cannot receive Christ’s righteousness for they feel that they are unworthy creatures who have not done enough. Rule keeping is a perversion of freedom: we think by doing we can achieve acceptance by God. Legalism stifles joy and freedom in the Christian life.

On the contrary, the saint is free for he or she is liberated by their righteous standing in Christ: nothing they do or fail to do will change their status as saints in Christ. God’s grace magnifies God’s unconditional love and motivates us by filling our hearts with overwhelming gratitude and appreciative love.

True freedom is not freedom from all responsibility to God and man in order to live for myself, but the exact opposite.  True freedom is freedom from myself and from the cramping tyranny of my own self-centeredness, in order to live in love for God and others.  Only in such self-giving love is an authentically free and human existence to be found.

John Stott, ‘Obeying Christ in a Changing World’, in Obeying Christ in a Changing World, Vol. 1: The Lord Christ (London: Collins, 1977), 28.

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The Amazing Generosity of God

Restoring Not Repaying

I will restore to you the years that othe swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.

Joel 2:25

When we sin, our actions hurt God and others. They create a ripple affect of pain and disappointment. Our families grow discouraged, our friends are disheartened, and the church is not blessed. Instead of being an example of faith and obedience, we give others an excuse not to obey God’s law and Christ’s commands. Our selfishness makes us central instead of Christ. We turn the world upside down.

When we repent, God not only forgives our sin; he heals our pain. God lifts us up from the miry clay and gives us a firm place to stand (Psalm 40: 1-3). God not only releases us from the debt we have created, but he heals the damage we have inflicted on ourselves and others. When we repent, he takes the mess we have made, and uses it for our good and his glory. It always better not to sin, but if we sin and repent, God will take our disaster and develop real maturity. God goes beyond just forgiving, he generously heals, restores, and renews.

Consider the amazing generosity of God. He did not limit His promise merely to restoring the land to its former productivity. He said He’ll repay them for the years the locusts have eaten, years they themselves forfeited to the judgment of God (Joel 2:25). God could well have said, “I’ll restore your land to its former productivity, but too bad about those years you lost! They are gone forever.  That’s the price you pay for your sin. He would have been generous just to have restored them – but He went beyond that. He would cause their harvests to be so abundant they would recoup the losses from the years of famine. He said He’ll repay them, though He obviously owed them nothing.

Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day-by-Day (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2008), 67.

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My Portion

Our Inheritance is God

I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.

Psalm 142:5 KJV

Remember when your were a little kid and mom was dolling out the ice cream. Every brother, sister, or friend had to get the same amount. No one should or could feel cheated. Every one must have the same and equal portion of ice cream. The idea of “portion,” meant an individual part or share in something.

In scripture, the word, “portion,” means something different. Portion in the old King James Version Bible and in the writings of the Puritans meant, “inheritance” : something granted or given to us by God. The greatest gift that God can give us is himself. Therefore, God is our inheritance: all we could ever want or desire. He is our complete satisfaction, our perfect portion forever.

Our God is a safe portion, a secure portion. He is a portion that no one can rob you of. He is a portion that none can touch or take from you. He is a portion that none can cheat or spoil you of. God is such a portion, that no friend, no foe, and no devil can ever rob a Christian of. O Christians, God is so yours in Christ, and so yours by covenant, and so yours by promise, and so yours by purchase, and so yours by conquest, and so yours by marriage union and communion, and so yours by the earnest of the Spirit, and so yours by the feelings and witnessings of the Spirit, that no power or policy on earth can ever pilfer your portion, or cheat, or rob you of your portion. He is not only our God for the present, O no! He will be our God for ever and ever. If God be once your portion, he will be forever your portion.

Thomas Brooks, Works of Thomas Thomas Brooks, II:26-27, cited in Voices From the Past: Puritan Devotional Readings, ed., Richard Rushing (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2009), 22.

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Grace For Each Person

Special Grace

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work”

2 Cor 9:7-9 NIV

Often, I am my own worst enemy, my worst accuser. I feel that I should be doing or should have done more for the Kingdom of God. I read the biographies of the great saints who have served the Lord and measure my life by theirs. Inevitably, I come up short every time. However, the Lord admonishes me not to be like the Corinthian congregation, “comparing themselves among themselves” (2 Cor. 10:12, NASU). I must remember that God has given me specific grace (1 Cor. 15: 10) to pastor, to preach, to work, to serve, to love in my particular parish with these special people.

I have not the grace of George Mueller, to build orphan houses, and receive by faith all his orphans; I have not the grace of Hudson Taylor, nor the grace of a simple housekeeper, a woman, or girl, to manage her ministry rightly; I have just the grace, the special grace, for the ministry which is committed to me. There is no member of the body, no one saved one introduced by God’s grace into that wonderful mysterious organism, the body of Christ, who has not received, besides the general grace, a special gift of grace for a special ministry in the body. Each member has his (or her) own grace.

Otto Stockmeyer, “The Sufficiency of Grace” in Daily Thoughts from Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 110.

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A Twofold Grace

A Grace that Empowers

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 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

Grace is a word that has been cliched in Christian churches. So overused and misused that very few people truly know what the word actually means anymore. Grace has become an abstraction in people’s minds. Often, it is misunderstood to mean, “God overlooks our sin(s).” Some truth exists in that statement, but not the whole truth. Biblical grace has two meanings:

Justifying grace is God’s undeserved, loving commitment to rescue us from his wrath and judgment. In Christ, God delivers us from sin and transports us into his loving kingdom of forgiveness.  Justifying grace calls us to trust Jesus Christ as our Savior, the one who has taken all our sin and just judgment upon himself. When we trust Christ by faith, his work of forgiveness begins by releasing us from our debt, transforming our hearts, and freeing us to live for him. Grace flows from the Cross: Christ death, burial, and resurrection was a costly grace.

Sanctifying grace is Jesus being the desire, ability, and power in us to respond to every life situation according to the will of God. Jesus is our desire for he works in us a hunger for holiness. Jesus is our ability for he enables us to make godly decisions and righteous choices. Jesus is our power for he strengthens us to overcome the world and its influence, our flesh and its passions, and inbred sin and its bondage.

In other words, grace is not the freedom to sin, but the freedom not to sin. Freedom from our sinful past, we are made right God; freedom from the power of sin, we can walk with God; and eventually, freedom from the presence of sin, we will live with Him in eternity.

The word grace is used in two senses. It is first the gracious disposition in God which moves Him to love us freely without our merit and to bestow all His blessings upon us. Then it also means that power which this grace does its work in us. The redeeming work of Christ and the righteousness He won for us, equally with the work of the Spirit in us and the power of the new life He brings, are spoken of as “grace.” It includes all that Christ has done and still does, all He has and gives, all He is for us and in us.

Andrew Murray, The Believers’s New Covenant (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1984), 83.

It is impossible to speak too strongly of the need to know that as wonderful and free and sufficient as is the grace that pardons, so is the grace that sanctifies; we are just as absolutely dependent upon the latter as the former. We can do as little to the one as the other. The grace that works in us must as exclusively do all in us and through us as the grace that pardons does all for us. In the one case as the other, everything is by faith alone.

Andrew Murray, The Believers’s New Covenant (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1984), 85.

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Great Receivers Get Pruned

It’s Good to be at the End of Your Rope

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

Matt. 5:3 (The Message)

God is sovereign. No sincere Christian debates that significant biblical truth (Dan. 7:14). However, it is difficult for us to believe that God is actively working through people and circumstances to deal with our selfishness and pride. Day-by-day, moment-by-moment, our Heavenly Father is cutting away those aspects of our lives which are inconsistent with Christlike character.

The Lord wants us to be great receivers. Therefore, he cuts away our self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, and self-absorption. He wants us to give up our striving and struggling. He wants you and I to give up and depend on the Holy Spirit.

The pruning work of our heavenly vinedresser is not an instantaneous process, but a gradual on-going work of God (John 15:2). Patience is required. Patience is an enabling of the Spirit to take trouble from life and wait till God, the heavenly vinedresser, works his perfect pruning process in our lives (Gal. 5:22). We are able to wait for we know that our Lord loves us and is working Christlikeness into our lives. We rejoice for Christlikeness is our heart’s desire (Rom. 8:18).

We can be patient in our circumstances because we know that God is up to something good in our delays, detours, and unexpected disappointments.

[God’s] grace purposes to expose and free you from your bondage to you. His grace is meant to bring you to the end of yourself so that you willing finally begin to place your identity, your meaning and purpose, and your inner sense of well-being in him.

So he places you in a comprehensive relationship with another flawed person, and he places that relationship right in the middle of a very broken world. To add to this, he designs circumstances for you that you would have never designed for yourself. All this is meant to bring you to the end of yourself, because that is where true righteousness begins.

He wants you to give up. He wants you to abandon your dream. He wants you to face the futility of trying to manipulate the other person into your service. He knows there is no life to be found in these things.

Paul Tripp, What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage, p. 51-52.

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Receiving Christ in Temptation

First Sunday of Lent Year C

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Heb. 4:15

Great Receivers: Without hesitation, reservation, equivocation, or qualification, great receivers open their hearts to God’s grace in season or out. They look to God during good times or bad. In the midst of spiritual highs or emotional lows with hearts wide open, great receivers look to Christ to be their deliverance. They keep their eyes on Jesus, enjoy his moment-by-moment presence, and draw strength from his grace. Great receivers recognize that they cannot be victorious over temptation without trusting Christ for help in their time of need (Heb. 4:16).

Illustration: “Some people fall into temptation, but a great many make plans for disaster ahead of time. “Son,” ordered a father, “Don’t swim in that canal.”

“OK, Dad,” he answered. But he came home carrying a wet bathing suit that evening.

“Where have you been?” demanded the father.

“Swimming in the canal,” answered the boy. “Didn’t I tell you not to swim there?” asked the father.

“Yes, Sir,” answered the boy.

“Why did you?” he asked.

“Well, Dad,” he explained, “I had my bathing suit with me and I couldn’t resist the temptation.”

“Why did you take your bathing suit with you?” he questioned.

“So I’d be prepared to swim, in case I was tempted,” he replied.

Charles Swindoll, One Step Forward, p. 85.

My sermon notes for “Great Receivers Stare Down Temptation” (Matt. 4:1-11) are available as a Google document.

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The Heart of a Great Receiver

The Father is Waiting to Find Our Hearts Open

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

Isa. 26:3 (KJV)

God has called us to be great receivers. Christ’s work on the Cross has brought about our acceptance before God. Therefore, all the promises of God are “yes” and “amen” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). We can without hesitation or equivocation receive God’s grace to meet any need, to quell any fear, and to help in the midst of any temptation (Heb. 4:15-16). We do not need to whine to prove our humility, to cajole to demonstrate our conviction, or to perform perfectly to prove our sincerity in order to receive God’s grace. With hearts wide open, we cry out to God and our God who is grace and love pours forth his blessing and goodness (2 Peter 1:3-4).

When you find that weariness depresses or amusement distracts you, you will calmly turn with an untroubled spirit to your Heavenly Father, who is always holding out His arms to you. You will look to Him for gladness and refreshment when depressed, for moderation and recollection when in good spirits, and you will find that He will never leave you to want.

A trustful glance, a silent movement of the heart towards Him will renew your strength; and though you may often feel as if your soul were downcast and numb, whatever God calls you to do, He will give you power and courage to perform. Our Heavenly Father, so far from ever overlooking us, is only waiting to find our hearts open, to pour into them the torrents of His grace.

François Fenelon cited in Joy and Strength for the Pilgrim’s Day, ed., Mary Wilder Tileston (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1901), 21.

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Religion vs. Grace

keller2-761312

I Can Obey Because I Am Accepted

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Rom 5:1-2 (ESV)

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.

Timothy Keller

HT: Tim Keller Wiki

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The Valley of Vision

job-and-his-wife

The burden of the valley of vision (Isa. 22:1 KJV)

The valley of vision is the place of weakness, lowliness, and personal brokenness. In this scripture, the valley speaks of “life’s darker experiences” (Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 182), a sort of dark night of the soul. In the valley, we desperately reach out to Christ for help. In our neediness; we meet Christ, experience answered prayer, and are refreshed in the presence of the Holy Spirit. In the valley, I come to know God by experience. As the ancient patriarch, Job announced, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). The valley is where we meet grace face-to-face and find that that God’s grace is greater than all our weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:1-10).

The Valley of Vision

Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;

Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.

Arthur Bennett, The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), xxiv.

HT: Tim Challies