Did You Receive God's Grace in Vain?

So, what does it mean to “receive the grace of God in vain”? For if you really do receive the grace of God, how then can it be in vain? Well, vain means “empty (in moral content), ineffective, foolish, worthless, false, pretentious, hollow” (source: biblehub.com interlinear). So, if you receive it in vain, it is a false (empty) receiving of God’s grace, which is what is happening today very much, partly due to a false concept of what God’s grace is, and partly due to false professions of faith which are not biblical in nature.

For the grace of God largely being taught today is God just forgiving people of their sins so that when they die they get to go to heaven. But that is just part of it. For God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s return. For Jesus Christ “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14)

For, by God’s grace, we who believe in Jesus Christ with God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in him are crucified with Christ in death to sin in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we will no longer be enslaved to sin. Therefore, we are no longer to let sin reign in our mortal bodies, to make us obey its passions. For if sin is what we obey, it leads to death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it leads to righteousness and to sanctification, and its end is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. (see Romans 6:1-23)

So, if we receive God’s grace in vain, this will mean that we professed faith in Jesus Christ, and we accepted God’s forgiveness of our sins and the hope of heaven when we die, but we did not die with him to sin, and we are not living to him and to his righteousness, but we are still living for self and in sin while still promising ourselves God’s forgiveness of our sins and the hope of heaven as our eternal destiny. But it is in vain because we did not, in truth, receive his grace, and the grace we received was not biblical grace.

So, that brings us to the questions of “What is salvation? What are we saved from? What are we saved to?” For so many people today are teaching salvation as only God forgiving us our sins so that when we die we get to go to heaven. For they also teach faith in Jesus Christ as a mere verbal profession of faith or as an acknowledgement of who Jesus is and of what he did for us on that cross, but empty of true God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in our Lord which comes from God and is not of our own doing – not of the will nor of the flesh of man.

[Hebrews 12:1-2; Ephesians 2:8-10; John 1:12-13; John 6:44]

For so many people today professing to be teaching the truth of the gospel are teaching a diluted and altered gospel message absent of biblical repentance, submission to God, surrender of their lives to Christ as Lord of their lives, and walks of obedience to the Lord in holy living, no longer living as slaves of sin but as slaves to God and to his righteousness. They are mainly teaching that you can “believe” in Jesus, have all your sins forgiven, and be on your way to heaven, but regardless of how you live your life.

And they call that grace, but that is not true biblical grace. And they call that “faith” and they call that “salvation” but they are not biblical faith and biblical salvation, either. For when God persuades us to have faith in Jesus Christ, he persuades us to deny self, die to sin (not just once, but in daily practice), and to follow him in obedience to his commands (Luke 9:23-26). And our salvation is deliverance out of slavery to sin so that we can now live holy lives, pleasing to God, by the grace of God, in his power.

So, make certain that when you hear the terms “grace,” “faith,” and “salvation,” that they are being taught biblically in full context of what the New Testament Scriptures teach as “grace, faith, and salvation.” And this salvation is not something that just happens to us once in our lives and now we are good to go to heaven when we die regardless of how we live, which is how so many are teaching it these days. We must remain steadfast in our walks of faith and obedience, and not in sin, until the very end.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-11; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 10:23-31; 1 Co 10:1-22; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

VOICE OF TRUTH

By Mark Hall & Steven Curtis Chapman
II Corinthians 12:7-10/I Corinthians 1:20-24

Oh what I would do to have
The kind of faith it takes to climb out of this boat I’m in
Onto the crashing waves

To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is
And He’s holding out His hand

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
Time and time again, “Boy, you’ll never win!”
“You’ll never win!”

But the voice of truth tells me a different story
The voice of truth says, “Do not be afraid!”
And the voice of truth says, “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth…


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