I have seen many people get into Grace and the fall into universalism. From there the following question. Why is faith needed and why did Paul and Jesus talk so much about it?
Sunday, January 16, 2011
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2 comments:
@Vivian - I hear the ache in your heart...and so does the Lord. So much of what I used to believe (based on what preachers have said) was shaken when I started truly READING the Word of God... paying special attention to what JESUS and the Apostles were saying. I find that when people preach the message of grace, they neglect to share that living under grace does not mean living "lawless" lives. In preaching the kingdom of God, Jesus came and upheld the Law of God... How could he do anything else? He is the LIVING LAW. What He demonstrated to us was He does not divorce love and obedience. He counts them as the same thing. Some well-meaning teachers tell us, well, what He preached to the people in the gospels was preached to a people UNDER the law and we are not under the law anymore. We are under grace. However, the NT makes it clear that if we violate or transgress the law, then we indeed ARE under the law. The glory of the New Covenant is that Christ died to break the power of the law of sin at work in our members, to receive a new nature with His laws written upon our inward parts because according to Paul, His laws are SPIRITUAL, requiring the nature of man to be changed in order to keep them as a natural way of life...which does NOT come automatically at the new birth, but in response to a steady diet of His Word and active obedience to His Word
A few things came to mind as I pondered your questions and the others' responses.
1) If the righteousness we have received by faith is right-BEING and it does not translate to right-LIVING, then we are deceived. We have received nothing of the nature of Christ.
2) Everything we have received from God is in seed form. That seed must be nurtured and cared for if it is to grow. By feeding Christ in us through self-denial or "taking up our cross", we begin to starve out and "put to death" those other things that are completely contrary and "anti-christ" in our members...the things that war against christ-likeness.
3) God sees everything. Every movement of the heart in love. Every act of rebellion against love. All things are laid bare before His eyes and we will all stand before Him in that day to give account for what we have done in the body. If this were not so, then He would not be a very good Judge, and Jesus rebuke of the churches of Revelation for their ACTIONS and WAY OF BEING would have been completely unneeded.
4) The Holy Spirit came after Jesus went to the Father to reprove/convict/convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Of sin because all who choose to live in agreement with it will stand condemned since Christ came and died to put away their sin and give them new life and they rejected Him in favor of their bondage and chose to fight against His gift of grace instead. Of righteousness because Jesus was leaving and He was THE STANDARD BEARER of perfect righteousness and He would no longer be with them to be that demonstration, which would necessitate the coming of the Holy Spirit to guide, counsel, remind, etc. Of Judgment because all who side with Satan through their actions and choices will also be judged with him because they remain as part of his kingdom, choosing HIS way instead of God's way.
5) Any form of grace that removes or voids personal responsibility is NOT true grace. It is FALSE grace.
True faith in Jesus Christ is depending on Him entirely to produce in us what we cannot produce in ourselves, to be IN us what we cannot be in ourselves.
Everyday we are BOMBARDED with temptations to act in a way contrary to the imperishable seed (nature)received not because of any righteousness on our part, but because of the finished work of Jesus. We did nothing to deserve it, since we were His enemies, and nothing to obtain it, since we were enslaved to the sin nature.
It is the challenge of every person that puts their confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ to learn from the Word of God what we have been saved out of and what we were saved INTO. If we are no longer children of darkness but children of light then why isn't there a distinction in BEING between those who have their citizenship of heaven and the citizens of the world? What sort of people should we BE if we have the LIVING CHRIST dwelling in our inner man? If we are abiding in Him, then why do we seem to be moving FURTHER away from christ-likeness and CLOSER to moral degradation and depravity?
The law of love should be our restraint, and yet because we only know dysfunctional love, we kick against anything that looks or sounds like discipline and we strike the Face of the very One that seeks to correct us with tender Hand.
Beloved, we are not our own moral center. Christ is. Grace is not a license to sin or to remain in sin. It is our free get-out-of-jail-and-never-return card where we learn to walk in the liberty of the Spirit and offer up our bodies as living sacrifices unto God to do His will by BEING His children in this world through bearing the fruits of righteousness that grow as we sow into our life in the Spirit by surrendering our will and our way of being to HIS will and HIS way of being in us and through us.
This kind of life is only possible through the power of His Spirit at work in us, who works both to WILL and to DO according to His good pleasure.
We can certainly act independently of Him and do as we please, but when we do we can be assured that we are no longer operating in the Spirit of freedom we have received, but we have chosen to operate in the spirit of bondage that we have been freed from.
Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Our minds need to be renewed in knowledge after His image. In the new birth, we have by His Spirit been RE-CREATED or renewed in knowledge after His image...so because that is a SPIRITUAL reality, faith says, HAHA! IT IS MINE and pursues it, trusting the actual work to the Holy Spirit to make what is true in the SPIRIT to become true in the NATURAL. Without our participation by engaging with Him in the process, we will NEVER truly be transformed because that seed that was planted will never receive water or nourishment from the Word of God to grow up into maturity. The potential for an abundant life is there, but the quality of that life will be determined by the amount of care it is given.
Being transformed is FAR from a passive process. He is not going to make our legs or arms move. He is not going to make us read the Bible. He is not going to make us pray. He is not going to make us NOT cheat on our spouses (even in our thoughts). He is not going to make us NOT lie, steal, or covet. The desire for godliness is there because of the new life we have received by His Spirit, but we have to act upon those desires for godliness, in the knowledge that until death is swallowed up in life at the resurrection of the dead, there will be a war happening within between the imperishable seed and the perishable, between our corruptible nature and and the incorruptible nature we receive in Christ, both vying for our attention, affection, and care. The one that we feed will be the one that grows. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows that will he reap. If you sow to the spirit you will reap the spirit. If you sow to the flesh, you will reap the flesh.
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