The grace of God

The inconsistencies of mankind verses the perfection of God. A topic well worth understanding as it will free the mind from some of their strongholds. There needs to be a breaking down in the formation of the building blocks that sin has cemented to our thought patterns. The book of Romans is of great assistance when unpacking this subject.

Let’s do some self-reflecting; how often do you find yourself saying I will do this or that but wane due to some interference? It may or may not be a valid reason why you cannot kick the ball  in the garden with your son, but to him all you have done is broken your word; the times I have said something and for one or other reason gone back on my word, actually disgusts me. And yet sin has taken care of that attribute in our lives, it is who we are! Here are some verses to back this up; “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:18-20) – Now some astute scholars would suggest that Paul is making reference to us prior to salvation, which I cannot accept, why? Test it against your own life after salvation; have you never again failed in that area? If you can which honestly say “I haven’t”, then by all means take the teaching of those verses and appropriately apply it to an unsaved person. If not and you have been found wanting as I have, then we must in my opinion conclude that this reality is still relevant to us after salvation. However with that said we must not isolate our understanding as we are instructed to put on the mind of Christ, so although this war is real we have the tools now to put the flesh under. Does the Spirit of God ever fail? Obviously not! Christians now have God's Spirit living in us. So what then is my conclusion; walk in the Spirit and we will not fall in the flesh.

What has change after our born again experience is that we have all been given the mind of Christ; “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.” (1Corinthians 2:14-16) - We can now understand spiritual truths, and our thoughts deepen as we grow in Him, nevertheless to some degree at salvation we must understand who God is and what He has done for us in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He has forgiven us of our sin, which required punishment but because of God’s mercy and grace we have escaped that punishment and all because the full price for our sin was paid for by Jesus Christ! The love of God! This is a miracle and can only ever be spiritually perceived. Through this God given wonder we are now sanctified by the blood of the lamb and flawlessly acceptable in God’s eyes. We have been reconciled to Him because of His perfect grace. In His perfection He was able to free His enemies and make them allies, He achieved this through love, not malice and we (born again believers) are now sons of God! God has made a way! Praise His glorious name now and forever more, Amen and Amen!

Nevertheless the war of right versus wrong continues to bombard our minds and we need to fight for daily sanctification. And the only way we will ever get through our struggles correctly, is to find grace. Some may have learnt to somehow keep sin at bay in certain areas of their lives, though some restraint or program but if it is outside of the provision of the grace of God is will only ever leave a person boastful. Here are two beautiful verses that gives us absolute clarity; “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) – The danger we face as carnal people is we like to work under the cloak of independence. We get saved and now we believe there is a certain path we should follow, which there is! However the mistake the church at Galatia made was the same mistake so many of us make, which is this; “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-7) – We get save in the spirit and then we look to earn our salvation though the feats of our flesh. This is a common mistake amongst believers and we need to trim our sails regularly so that we do not lose our way. This is why I love the WORD OF GOD so much as it always sets us straight when we unpack it correctly.

This is where the beauty of God is most evident. In His perfection, which is complete, it’s not as if God acquired grace to give out, He is grace, He never developed it but He is perfect in grace. The human race all fall under the provision of God’s grace. Believer or not, common grace is appreciated by all, the air we breathe, the rising and the setting of the sun, the list is endless. However saving grace is a very special portion of God’s grace that the select receive. Who are these people? Again is not difficult to arrive at an accurate conclusion; those whose names are penned in the “book of life”. And the only way to be amongst that number is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, period! It is not a complicated message;  "For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”" (Romans 10:13)  

It is obvious that we (mankind) are sinners. Has anyone lived a life with breaking one of God's commandments? Obviously not! God is grace and within His eternal script He is working that out perfectly; with no blemish, His perfect plan unfolds even though some curse God as they worship His creation, not acknowledging Him as the creator. God does not flinch for a second but continues in perfection to offer grace to His enemies. Wow! How big is our God! What is our natural tendency when we are attacked? To retaliate. Our characters are worlds apart.

Do you see how futile it is for us to boast about anything we achieve in Him? We are sinners saved by grace, imperfect, tainted by sin and yet God sees us as righteous in Christ. Only God’s perfect grace has accomplished this and obviously the perfect love of God completes Him to be merciful, Wow! As soon as we look to take some sort of recognition for our own feats we forget about the perfect grace of God. This is why we are so aptly taught that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble! “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1Peter 5:6-7) - His perfect grace becomes our reality when we learn to trust Him in every area of our lives. Sure we will experience grace in the areas we yield to God, but what about all the secret hidden pockets in our lives? May God help us to trust Him even more as we see that day approaching. I suppose when we understand that we cannot help God with this process, bar laying our lives at His feet, total surrender is what is required and that we will have to work out through testing, which in itself is a process, we must learn to put on the mind of Christ.  

Today is Christmas and if you are persuaded that we must celebrate today as the day of Christ’s birth, I plead with you do not then share it with other idols like Santa and the like, make sure your message is clear and concise, used today to propagate the gospel as you side-line the straw men that have been designed to take peoples eyes off God’s grace!

Signing off

Tyrone