Grace

[Mark of Faith]

I have been totally amazed today. The Lord has really been impressing upon my heart.

I have been reading Christ Empowered Living, by Selwyn Hughes, and he quotes Rom 5:10 : "For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!"

Selwyn adds that "we were reconciled to him", not the other way round. Jesus didn't die to make God love us, it was because God loved us that Jesus died.

This really struck me today...God loved me first.

Consider this, again from Romans: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Rom 5:8

My sister shared a statement with me later: "The Law was about what man could do for God, but Grace is about what God has done for man."

In prayer today I gained a glimpse of what Jesus meant when He said upon the Cross, "It is finished". "There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, there is nothing I can do to make Him love me less.", as the song goes.

Of course, there is much exhortation in the Bible to flee from evil and to do good works, but we don't "earn" God's love that way. Rather, we do good because we know His love.

Note (again in Romans) that the result of sin is called "wages", meaning that it is earned, or deserved, but eternal life is called a "free gift", meaning it cannot be earned. (Rom 6:23)

We are saved by Grace, not by works.

 

[Faith4Bride]

hi mark

here is some scriptures to chew on to take this to a deeper study.

Jhn 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

(this scripture is in response to judas's question. we know that judas was loved by jesus and called his friend,however judas ( to fulfill prophesy) betrayed jesus and was lost, event though he was chosen by jesus, and jesus says that IF a man love me he will keep my words AND my father WILL love him. it doesnt say His father does already or will either way love him.

Jhn 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

this again gives an IF and says if we do this IF we will abide in his love. it doesnt say we abide in it no matter what.

There are also scriptures that show that God hates the wicked- not as popularly taught, just the sin but loves the sinner. God does not love all people, but indeed He does love us and did love us(who are now saved) before we were saved

there is a wonderful answer and hard to understand and take to these things and they of course all make sence and all fit together, God bless you to seek them out

 

[Mark of Faith]

Thank you Faith4Bride for giving further thought.

You quote Jn 15:10. And yes, we need to obey Christ's commandments to abide in His love. Obedience is an important part of following Christ, and I didn't mean to infer otherwise.

However, look back a verse at Jn 15:10 (KJV): "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love."

I think there is a difference between what is true, and what we experience. Jesus loves us...He has said that and as Jesus is the Truth, we can trust that. However, to "abide" in His love...to "experience it", to "gain the benefit of it", requires action on our part..to OBEY His teaching.

Note how earlier on in Jn 15 Jesus talks of He being the true vine. We need to abide in Him in order to bear fruit. We are called to abide in Him, and Him in us..with quite a warning that if we do not, then we are cast away. However, this warning is tempered by other Scriptures such as Rom 8:38-39: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (KJV)

The harsh warnings that appear in the Gospels, Hebrews, 2 Peter , etc., I believe to be directed at those who hear the Gospel, yet wholeheartedly reject it, and go about deliberately deceiving others. I do not believe they apply to those who have accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour.


I hope to post more later, but I hope that which I have posted is helpful.

Mark.

 

[jari]

Amen! I'm glad to hear you learned that. Indeed grace cannot be repayed in anyway and we could not have paid our sin dept either which is why Christ did it for us by tooking all our sin upon Him.



Here's one verse that came my mind that you could add to this study:

(Joh 3:36) He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.



Yea, Jesus really did remove that wrath and enemity between man and God:

(Eph 2:14) For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;



I hope those verses bless you.

God bless.

 

[Mark of Faith]

Wrath

Thank you Jari. I struggle sometimes with a lot of condemnation, and can begin to doubt if I am a Christian at all..but I daily put on "the helmet of salvation" to protect my mind. The sins I have committed are pretty bad, and are the result, partly, of my listening to false doctine much in the past. As such I am a bit wary of much teaching..which is only right.

I am convinced that it is Grace that saves us. In fact, this is evidenced by the Cross. Sin is so wicked, so rotten, so offensive to God. Even as Christians we sin, and no sin is worse than any other in God's sight, for if we fall short on one part of the law, we are guilty of breaking it all. (I'll find the reference for that and post it later.)

So, how can we be forgiven our sin? We can say "sorry, I won't do it again". But that isn't enough...firstly, sin isn't that light a matter that saying "sorry" is enough. Second, the sinful nature is powerful..it permeates every part of our being.

God's answer, the Only answer, is the Cross. The power of sin is broken by the Cross, so that we need not be overcome by sin. And the consequence of sin...death, has been accomplished by Christ dying. God's wrath has been poured out upon His Son, so that we who are in Christ are not objects of God's wrath any longer.

Love in Christ,

Mark.

 

[Mark of Faith]

Here are two Scriptures which show that we are not justified by our own efforts:

"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." James 2:10 (NIV)
And:

"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his [God's] sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Rom 3:20. (NIV)

And again in Rom 3:23 (NIV): "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

I do feel I need to emphasize here that I am not suggesting that we as Christians can go about doing what we want, when that is contrary to God's word. Paul, and other Biblical writers, are quite clear in the fact that as children of God we ought to permit the Holy Spirit to transform us through sanctification (becoming holy). My Study Bible points out in one of its annotations that "to not mature as a Christian is in itself a sin".
What I am trying to point out is that we do good works because we are loved by God, not that God loves us because we do good works.

Love and blessing,

Mark.

 

[Chad]

Excellent thread brother.

"The Law was about what man could do for God, but Grace is about what God has done for man."

I have to be honest. While I've explained this (like many others have) many times, I cannot remember hearing it or reading it in such a sweet, simple straightforward way as your sister said it. Its so simple and simply true.

I also love Romans 5:8. In one short verse, it easily sums up the entire Bible, purpose of Christ's death and GOD's character in Jesus! Just amazing how powerful the Word is, all the time.

 

[jiggyfly]

hi mark

here is some scriptures to chew on to take this to a deeper study.

Jhn 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

(this scripture is in response to judas's question. we know that judas was loved by jesus and called his friend,however judas ( to fulfill prophesy) betrayed jesus and was lost, event though he was chosen by jesus, and jesus says that IF a man love me he will keep my words AND my father WILL love him. it doesnt say His father does already or will either way love him.

Jhn 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

this again gives an IF and says if we do this IF we will abide in his love. it doesnt say we abide in it no matter what.

There are also scriptures that show that God hates the wicked- not as popularly taught, just the sin but loves the sinner. God does not love all people, but indeed He does love us and did love us(who are now saved) before we were saved
there is a wonderful answer and hard to understand and take to these things and they of course all make sence and all fit together, God bless you to seek them out

I don't think I can agree with your statement ( bolded and underlined). Do by chance have some scriptures to back this up.

 

[Mark of Faith]

Love

Jhn 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

(this scripture is in response to judas's question. we know that judas was loved by jesus and called his friend,however judas ( to fulfill prophesy) betrayed jesus and was lost, event though he was chosen by jesus, and jesus says that IF a man love me he will keep my words AND my father WILL love him. it doesnt say His father does already or will either way love him.

I would just like to note that the Judas that had asked this question wasn't Iscariot. Although Judas Iscariot was one of the Twelve, it is clear that he had never been chosen to be saved.

God does not love all people, but indeed He does love us and did love us(who are now saved) before we were saved

I tend to agree with jiggyfly that this statement is not true. Although the Old Testament writers often spoke of God hating the wicked, a fuller picture is seen in the New Testament. Jesus hated the Pharisee's self-righteousness, yet acted lovingly towards them, even choosing Saul (to become Paul) as an apostle.

Note also the famous verse Jn 3:16a..."For God so loved the world.." This verse doesn't say "some of the world", but "the world".

Also I'd like to refer to Jesus' teaching as written in Matthew. We are taught to love God, love our neighbours, love one another (in John), and in Matt 5:44: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." KJV.

I do not believe God asks His children to do that which He would not do Himself. We are called to love all people, and so God must love all people.

With love,

Mark.

 

[Richie]

Dear Brother Mark,

Your post about 'grace' is amazing. By reading this post, I understood what the bible has to say about grace in one of the most simplest manner. There are two points in your post which touched me a lot:

>>> "The Law was about what man could do for God, but Grace is about what God has done for man."

>>> "There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, there is nothing I can do to make Him love me less."

Keeping this view in mind I also found in the same thread (but a latter post):

>>> "I do feel I need to emphasize here that I am not suggesting that we as Christians can go about doing what we want, when that is contrary to God's word."

I think, we can extend the above sentence furthur with the help of a bible verse as follows:

Romans 6:1 and 2
"1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

What Paul the apostle is trying to tell us here is that we should not take advantage of God's grace and fall in sin (in other words stray away from the Lord). It is much similar to what you mentioned. I do believe that you will agree with this.

Praise the Lord.

God bless you.

 

[Mark of Faith]

Romans 6:1 and 2
"1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

Yes Richie, that is certainly a verse which I have in mind...we are called to be holy, but when we fall short of this we must remind ourselves of 1 Jn 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness". NKJV.

As I walk further with Jesus I am becoming aware that His love and salvation are sure, but that His desire is to see me mature and grow and be set free from sins which I have fallen into, not to earn His love, but as a response to His love.

 

[Yvette Tanson]

Thank you Jari. I struggle sometimes with a lot of condemnation, and can begin to doubt if I am a Christian at all..but I daily put on "the helmet of salvation" to protect my mind. The sins I have committed are pretty bad, and are the result, partly, of my listening to false doctine much in the past. As such I am a bit wary of much teaching..which is only right.

I am convinced that it is Grace that saves us. In fact, this is evidenced by the Cross. Sin is so wicked, so rotten, so offensive to God. Even as Christians we sin, and no sin is worse than any other in God's sight, for if we fall short on one part of the law, we are guilty of breaking it all. (I'll find the reference for that and post it later.)

So, how can we be forgiven our sin? We can say "sorry, I won't do it again". But that isn't enough...firstly, sin isn't that light a matter that saying "sorry" is enough. Second, the sinful nature is powerful..it permeates every part of our being.

God's answer, the Only answer, is the Cross. The power of sin is broken by the Cross, so that we need not be overcome by sin. And the consequence of sin...death, has been accomplished by Christ dying. God's wrath has been poured out upon His Son, so that we who are in Christ are not objects of God's wrath any longer.

Love in Christ,

Mark.

Condemnation is from satan, when you feel condemned rebuke satan and like jeseus did in the wilderness quote scripture to him in particular Roms 8:1-2. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, Who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (nkjv)
Agree with what you said about grace. Isnt it great when God gives us a revelation like this? It really can change the way you think, feel and act.

 

[Mark of Faith]

Thank you Yvette, you are absolutely right and your words are confirmation of what has been happening in my life this past week. I posted in the "Testimonies" forum on this very subject.

God bless,

Mark.