G
gideons300
Guest
I normally write long posts. I hope some read them, but others may simply roll their eyes and shut their ears to what I share. This post is longer, and it is important. I pray that all who see it, read it and then pray. The results I leave to God. I so pray it blesses.
Grace plus nothing or grace plus works. It seems to be an either/or situation and has caused much fighting and disagreements throughout the body.. People seem to line up in either Paul's corner, or in James's corner, and in not so many words say that the other apostle got it wrong. That alone should send red flags up to us.
Were not both men filled with the Spirit? Are we not to live by every word from God? Can the word of God contradict itself? If that is true, then woe unto us, for now it falls on OUR shoulders to discern the truths and the lies, and we get into the camp that agrees with us and are immediately forced to say those in the other camp are either legalists, or greasy gracers. The result is that the body is separated, and satan smiles at his cunning.
So how can it be that BOTH are right? What could be said that will explain this contradiction? How is it possible? The gulf between these two seeming extremes seems uncrossable, even bigger than the chasm between Lazarus and the rich man. So the question is. is there a bridge that connects the two, that makes each one not contradict the other, but totally agree with the other?
I believe there is. There can be no doubt...none.... that we are saved by grace alone. No work we can do can buy it. I think we all agree on that. But there is also no doubt that we do have a part in our salvation. And what is that? We must respond to God' offer of grace, amen?
Two men came to Jesus, seeking life. The rich young ruler came, and wanted eternal life. He asked the Lord what must he do. And what did Jesus tell him? Go, sell all you have, and come and follow me and you will have riches in heaven. Now this was not a blanket statement for all. It was specific to this man. His pearl collection was his riches. Jesus offered him his pearl of great price, but in essence told him he must lay down his treasure so his hands would be free to accept THE treasure. And the man went away sorrowful, for he was told the cost, and was not willing to pay it. Jesus did not ask him to "do a work". He asked him to empty his hands so he could grasp what God was wanting to freely give him.
Zacheus, the little tax collector that climbed the tree to glimpse Jesus, was told to do no work. He willingly responded to the light of Christ and said:
"This is what I am going to do so that I may receive this amazing pearl. I am giving away my pearls so that my hands will be able to receive such an amazing gift."
In both cases, cost needed to be counted. Hands needed to be emptied. In one, the treasure in his hand was loved too much. It may have looked like a "work" to go and sell all you have and give it to the poor. It was not. It was simply an emptying of the hands to be able to respond to grace. But in the second instance, Jesus did not even need to say anything. Zacheus willingly offered to empty his hands. He saw the pearly of great price for what it really was. It was far ore valuable than his entire collection of pearls.
So what does this teach us? Was not grace offered to both? Did not Jesus love both men the same? What was the difference then, a difference so great that one ended u in eternity with Jesus, with eternal life and the other missed it completely? It was that word RESPONSE. Grace + RESPONSE = salvation.
And who is it that responds to grace? We are told in the Bible. Those that love the light come to it. They willingly empty their hands of what they highly value and accept the free gift. No work needs be done. If I offer you a solid gold bar as a gift, a bar so heavy it takes both hands to receive it, and you hold on of silver in your hands, what do you do? It is a free gift, no strings attached. No work needs to be done to accept it. BUT something still must be done. You have to free your hands up to be able to receive it, amen?
Grace is free, BUT grace calls for a response.
Now, we have gotten it in our hearts that our salvation is a one moment affair. We think that once we have the gold bar in hand, grace has done its work and nothing more needs to be responded to. We have our bus tickets to heaven, and we are safe. And it is true, IF we continue responding to grace. We are called to GROW in grace, for grace is given:
"to teach us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we are to live soberly, righteously and justly in this present age."
And that makes us all a little nervous, for now it is sounding like work is a part of it. If we are saved by grace, and are still inside have the same natures, and we could not do those things before we were recipients of grace, then it scares us, for now it seems that there is work required. We have to live soberly and righteously and justly. And if we do not do this or cannot do this, what then? And now we are getting close to the edge of the chasm between grace plus nothing and grace plus works. Do not be scared, there is a bridge connecting them.
How is it possible to be saved by grace alone, and then have to fulfill these "requirements" afterwards? James said that if we do not see these fruitful works that grace teaches us to have in our lives, then something is wrong. This confuses us even more and the pressure builds to "do good" and if we don't, we are in deep trouble. How can it be grace AND resulting actions and still be grace??
It can't..... unless grace is also able to change us, to alter our very nature at its core, so that just as surely when we were bad trees, we produced bad fruits, so it will be if we are good trees. Our actions are simply a testimony of our core nature.
So, if grace does call for deeds of righteousness and goodness and purity, there can be only one way that grace can stay grace. There must be a place in God where God CAUSES us to become obedient children. And there is. It is called the new nature.
Our old fallen nature, the self nature, what the Bible calls the flesh, has no problem seeing that we do bad things. It is simply us doing what comes naturally. We have been taught that when we are saved, we still have that core bad nature, and it is now our job to try to "be good". If we fail, we can confess it and Jesus forgives. So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try again. We are taught that little by little, over a lifetime of choices and stumblings and failures, we get closer and closer to being good, but that since we are only human, we can never truly meet the "ideals" of walking as living sacrifices. They are only goals, unreachable ones. Some get closer to others, and they get bigger mansions in heaven that are nearer to Jesus's house. Others don't meet those ideals at all, and some do not even want to, but still, they get to heaven and are on the outskirts of the city, in the middle class section. LOL.
But that is not what our Bibles tell us. If we are His, our flesh is DEAD. Paul tells us clearly in Romans 8 that we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God is in us. He tells us something more. We owe the flesh NOTHIJG. We are told in Romans 6 these two facts.
1) When Jesus died, so did our old nature.
2) When Christ arose from the dead, he brought us up with Him...with NEW natures!
We may not feel new. We may not be doing "new natured things". Our deeds may not line up with having new natures. But nevertheless we ARE new at our core. We ARE light, with no part dark. Oh, I pray we get this! We MUST believe this to move forward.
Now, if this is a fact, then why do we not see the change in us? Has not God promised in the new covenant to CAUSE US to become obedient children?
"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."
Ezekiel 36:25-27
Glory to God! He has promised to make us DIFFERENT. He has told us that unlike the old covenant where the cornerstone is OBEY MY VOICE AND I WILL BE YOUR GOD AND YOU SHALL BE MY PEOPLE, the new covenant is different. Not only does He promise forgiveness, washing away our stains, He also promised that it will not be on HIS shoulders to see that we are obedient, that we are to bring forth fruit, that we are to produce works of righteousness.
There is the narrow bridge that connects Paul and James. And it is ours. Amazing grace just got one hundred fold MORE amazing, amen? However, just as before with the rich young ruler and the free gift he turned down because he could not let go of what he prized most, grace still calls for a response. God offers us brand new natures, unselfish natures, pure natures, loving natures, obedient natures, but what do we find in our hands? Self natures that we love. The right to rule over ourselves. The ability to sin when we feel like it. OLD NATURES.
And what is the response God wants from us. It is to surrender what we have prized, natures that cannot truly obey God or honor Him. We are told that those who are in the flesh, the old nature, cannot please God. We must be willing to let go and willingly receive the amazing gift. Brand new hearts.
This is the choice we are being made aware of in these last days. To hold onto our old nature is death. Putting on the new nature is the pathway to life, to obedience, to joy unspeakable, to being CAUSED to be fruitful and to produce WORKS. Not our works.... His IN US.
Paul told us how to make the swap. He told us in Romans 6 that because we know those two items in red above, THEREFORE (our part in emptying our hands) reckon yourself dead to sin and self and alive to God with new natures. It is a leap of faith that says:
"I believe what God has said. He has given us new hearts, obedient hearts. and I long for that. I so want to please my God, to be His friend, for He has said that we are His friends if we obey Him.... and He has told me to believe. Therefore, I DO."
It is as simple as taking off a stained robe, and slipping into a new one, a white one. This is how we respond to such amazing grace. We believe.
There is a place in God where, once rooted there, to our amazement, we begin to be changed from the inside out. An with that change, our actions, our deeds change. There is NO pressure to change. The only thing we have to do is ABIDE, and if we do, we will see righteousness spring forth form is simply because it is now our nature to do so.
Paul said that we are saved by grace through faith, with no work on our part involved. He was right. James said that such grace would bring us to the point where God CAUSED works, fruits, deeds to spring forth from us and if they did not, we had not yet understood how deep the new covenant of grace really ran. There is no conflict. None.
Oh, dear fellow saints. You are not the old you any longer. You are new at your core. You are light. Sin does NOT have dominion over you. But it has not profited you yet, as you have not mixed that truth with faith. How do we receive it? We believe God is not a liar, and if He said we are light, we are, with no part dark. We agree with God, and confess these as truth for they are.
May God open eyes to what our God has for us, what He has always had for us, life more abundant, overcoming life. Rest. Joy. No more pressure to BE GOOD. We ARE good, and as we abide in Him, as we continue to hold up our shields of faith in the face of satan's accusations, to our own amazement, we will see God begin to do exactly what he promised to do, to MAKE us fruitful.
We do have a part in this. We are not told to go produce fruit. We are told to MAKE OUR TREE GOOD. And how do we do this? By believing that the old us is dead, not dying. D-E-A-D.
Paul said this and it summarizes the glory of the new covenant and what it promised us:
"I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ now liveth in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
I promise you this. This will revolutionize you life, it will revolutionize our church. It will cause us to again turn the world upside down for Christ. After God spoke through Ezekiel about this amazing new covenant that promises to transform us into obedient children, fruit filled children, He says that the heathen will KNOW that He is the Lord, when He shall be sanctified IN US before their very eyes.
This is the event, the church awaking to righteousness, and lighting their lamps, that is to happen in the last days. This is what will cause the church to actually, in real time, prepare herself as a bride without spot or wrinkle. This is what every true lamb of God has hungered for since the say of your conversion. You ARE light. You ARE new. Raise your shields, saints of God, and you will find a walk you have only dreamed of. We are the generation who will herald the return of our King. May our God cause us to believe the glorious news.
With many prayer and many tears,
Gideon
Grace plus nothing or grace plus works. It seems to be an either/or situation and has caused much fighting and disagreements throughout the body.. People seem to line up in either Paul's corner, or in James's corner, and in not so many words say that the other apostle got it wrong. That alone should send red flags up to us.
Were not both men filled with the Spirit? Are we not to live by every word from God? Can the word of God contradict itself? If that is true, then woe unto us, for now it falls on OUR shoulders to discern the truths and the lies, and we get into the camp that agrees with us and are immediately forced to say those in the other camp are either legalists, or greasy gracers. The result is that the body is separated, and satan smiles at his cunning.
So how can it be that BOTH are right? What could be said that will explain this contradiction? How is it possible? The gulf between these two seeming extremes seems uncrossable, even bigger than the chasm between Lazarus and the rich man. So the question is. is there a bridge that connects the two, that makes each one not contradict the other, but totally agree with the other?
I believe there is. There can be no doubt...none.... that we are saved by grace alone. No work we can do can buy it. I think we all agree on that. But there is also no doubt that we do have a part in our salvation. And what is that? We must respond to God' offer of grace, amen?
Two men came to Jesus, seeking life. The rich young ruler came, and wanted eternal life. He asked the Lord what must he do. And what did Jesus tell him? Go, sell all you have, and come and follow me and you will have riches in heaven. Now this was not a blanket statement for all. It was specific to this man. His pearl collection was his riches. Jesus offered him his pearl of great price, but in essence told him he must lay down his treasure so his hands would be free to accept THE treasure. And the man went away sorrowful, for he was told the cost, and was not willing to pay it. Jesus did not ask him to "do a work". He asked him to empty his hands so he could grasp what God was wanting to freely give him.
Zacheus, the little tax collector that climbed the tree to glimpse Jesus, was told to do no work. He willingly responded to the light of Christ and said:
"This is what I am going to do so that I may receive this amazing pearl. I am giving away my pearls so that my hands will be able to receive such an amazing gift."
In both cases, cost needed to be counted. Hands needed to be emptied. In one, the treasure in his hand was loved too much. It may have looked like a "work" to go and sell all you have and give it to the poor. It was not. It was simply an emptying of the hands to be able to respond to grace. But in the second instance, Jesus did not even need to say anything. Zacheus willingly offered to empty his hands. He saw the pearly of great price for what it really was. It was far ore valuable than his entire collection of pearls.
So what does this teach us? Was not grace offered to both? Did not Jesus love both men the same? What was the difference then, a difference so great that one ended u in eternity with Jesus, with eternal life and the other missed it completely? It was that word RESPONSE. Grace + RESPONSE = salvation.
And who is it that responds to grace? We are told in the Bible. Those that love the light come to it. They willingly empty their hands of what they highly value and accept the free gift. No work needs be done. If I offer you a solid gold bar as a gift, a bar so heavy it takes both hands to receive it, and you hold on of silver in your hands, what do you do? It is a free gift, no strings attached. No work needs to be done to accept it. BUT something still must be done. You have to free your hands up to be able to receive it, amen?
Grace is free, BUT grace calls for a response.
Now, we have gotten it in our hearts that our salvation is a one moment affair. We think that once we have the gold bar in hand, grace has done its work and nothing more needs to be responded to. We have our bus tickets to heaven, and we are safe. And it is true, IF we continue responding to grace. We are called to GROW in grace, for grace is given:
"to teach us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we are to live soberly, righteously and justly in this present age."
And that makes us all a little nervous, for now it is sounding like work is a part of it. If we are saved by grace, and are still inside have the same natures, and we could not do those things before we were recipients of grace, then it scares us, for now it seems that there is work required. We have to live soberly and righteously and justly. And if we do not do this or cannot do this, what then? And now we are getting close to the edge of the chasm between grace plus nothing and grace plus works. Do not be scared, there is a bridge connecting them.
How is it possible to be saved by grace alone, and then have to fulfill these "requirements" afterwards? James said that if we do not see these fruitful works that grace teaches us to have in our lives, then something is wrong. This confuses us even more and the pressure builds to "do good" and if we don't, we are in deep trouble. How can it be grace AND resulting actions and still be grace??
It can't..... unless grace is also able to change us, to alter our very nature at its core, so that just as surely when we were bad trees, we produced bad fruits, so it will be if we are good trees. Our actions are simply a testimony of our core nature.
So, if grace does call for deeds of righteousness and goodness and purity, there can be only one way that grace can stay grace. There must be a place in God where God CAUSES us to become obedient children. And there is. It is called the new nature.
Our old fallen nature, the self nature, what the Bible calls the flesh, has no problem seeing that we do bad things. It is simply us doing what comes naturally. We have been taught that when we are saved, we still have that core bad nature, and it is now our job to try to "be good". If we fail, we can confess it and Jesus forgives. So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try again. We are taught that little by little, over a lifetime of choices and stumblings and failures, we get closer and closer to being good, but that since we are only human, we can never truly meet the "ideals" of walking as living sacrifices. They are only goals, unreachable ones. Some get closer to others, and they get bigger mansions in heaven that are nearer to Jesus's house. Others don't meet those ideals at all, and some do not even want to, but still, they get to heaven and are on the outskirts of the city, in the middle class section. LOL.
But that is not what our Bibles tell us. If we are His, our flesh is DEAD. Paul tells us clearly in Romans 8 that we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God is in us. He tells us something more. We owe the flesh NOTHIJG. We are told in Romans 6 these two facts.
1) When Jesus died, so did our old nature.
2) When Christ arose from the dead, he brought us up with Him...with NEW natures!
We may not feel new. We may not be doing "new natured things". Our deeds may not line up with having new natures. But nevertheless we ARE new at our core. We ARE light, with no part dark. Oh, I pray we get this! We MUST believe this to move forward.
Now, if this is a fact, then why do we not see the change in us? Has not God promised in the new covenant to CAUSE US to become obedient children?
"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."
Ezekiel 36:25-27
Glory to God! He has promised to make us DIFFERENT. He has told us that unlike the old covenant where the cornerstone is OBEY MY VOICE AND I WILL BE YOUR GOD AND YOU SHALL BE MY PEOPLE, the new covenant is different. Not only does He promise forgiveness, washing away our stains, He also promised that it will not be on HIS shoulders to see that we are obedient, that we are to bring forth fruit, that we are to produce works of righteousness.
There is the narrow bridge that connects Paul and James. And it is ours. Amazing grace just got one hundred fold MORE amazing, amen? However, just as before with the rich young ruler and the free gift he turned down because he could not let go of what he prized most, grace still calls for a response. God offers us brand new natures, unselfish natures, pure natures, loving natures, obedient natures, but what do we find in our hands? Self natures that we love. The right to rule over ourselves. The ability to sin when we feel like it. OLD NATURES.
And what is the response God wants from us. It is to surrender what we have prized, natures that cannot truly obey God or honor Him. We are told that those who are in the flesh, the old nature, cannot please God. We must be willing to let go and willingly receive the amazing gift. Brand new hearts.
This is the choice we are being made aware of in these last days. To hold onto our old nature is death. Putting on the new nature is the pathway to life, to obedience, to joy unspeakable, to being CAUSED to be fruitful and to produce WORKS. Not our works.... His IN US.
Paul told us how to make the swap. He told us in Romans 6 that because we know those two items in red above, THEREFORE (our part in emptying our hands) reckon yourself dead to sin and self and alive to God with new natures. It is a leap of faith that says:
"I believe what God has said. He has given us new hearts, obedient hearts. and I long for that. I so want to please my God, to be His friend, for He has said that we are His friends if we obey Him.... and He has told me to believe. Therefore, I DO."
It is as simple as taking off a stained robe, and slipping into a new one, a white one. This is how we respond to such amazing grace. We believe.
There is a place in God where, once rooted there, to our amazement, we begin to be changed from the inside out. An with that change, our actions, our deeds change. There is NO pressure to change. The only thing we have to do is ABIDE, and if we do, we will see righteousness spring forth form is simply because it is now our nature to do so.
Paul said that we are saved by grace through faith, with no work on our part involved. He was right. James said that such grace would bring us to the point where God CAUSED works, fruits, deeds to spring forth from us and if they did not, we had not yet understood how deep the new covenant of grace really ran. There is no conflict. None.
Oh, dear fellow saints. You are not the old you any longer. You are new at your core. You are light. Sin does NOT have dominion over you. But it has not profited you yet, as you have not mixed that truth with faith. How do we receive it? We believe God is not a liar, and if He said we are light, we are, with no part dark. We agree with God, and confess these as truth for they are.
May God open eyes to what our God has for us, what He has always had for us, life more abundant, overcoming life. Rest. Joy. No more pressure to BE GOOD. We ARE good, and as we abide in Him, as we continue to hold up our shields of faith in the face of satan's accusations, to our own amazement, we will see God begin to do exactly what he promised to do, to MAKE us fruitful.
We do have a part in this. We are not told to go produce fruit. We are told to MAKE OUR TREE GOOD. And how do we do this? By believing that the old us is dead, not dying. D-E-A-D.
Paul said this and it summarizes the glory of the new covenant and what it promised us:
"I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ now liveth in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
I promise you this. This will revolutionize you life, it will revolutionize our church. It will cause us to again turn the world upside down for Christ. After God spoke through Ezekiel about this amazing new covenant that promises to transform us into obedient children, fruit filled children, He says that the heathen will KNOW that He is the Lord, when He shall be sanctified IN US before their very eyes.
This is the event, the church awaking to righteousness, and lighting their lamps, that is to happen in the last days. This is what will cause the church to actually, in real time, prepare herself as a bride without spot or wrinkle. This is what every true lamb of God has hungered for since the say of your conversion. You ARE light. You ARE new. Raise your shields, saints of God, and you will find a walk you have only dreamed of. We are the generation who will herald the return of our King. May our God cause us to believe the glorious news.
With many prayer and many tears,
Gideon
