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Posts Tagged ‘grace’

What You Do Does (and Doesn’t) Matter

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , on April 29, 2014| 2 Comments »

I grew up in the church being taught that what you do, good works and good deeds, are very important. I’ve never questioned that teaching…until recently.

I began to wonder why works are stressed so much by the church. If we are living by grace, why do we need to worry about what we do?

Of course, after thinking about it and reasoning a while, I’ve come to some different conclusions.

Works, in regard to salvation, are not necessary. No matter what we do or don’t do, it doesn’t change how much God loves us, and it doesn’t have anything to do with our relationship with God.

So many people seem to think the whole Christian experience is based on how much we can do. All this does is put people on higher or lower levels in Christianity than others. Those who do many works sometimes look down on those who don’t do a lot and think lower of them. Those who don’t do a lot look up to those who are constantly busy and wish they could be more like them.

Do we really think people are positioned in God’s kingdom based on how much they do for God? After all, Jesus did all the work. He died so that we could be free and enjoy life in the kingdom.

Jesus wants us to be one with Him and one with each other. We are all equally important members of the body of Christ. When we focus on how many works we do each day, feeling obligated to do as much as we can, we end up being divided in the body of Christ.

In regard to our salvation, works do not make a difference whether we do a million good works or if we don’t do any.

Works make a difference when it comes to showing God’s love to those we meet throughout the day. The bible says to do our good works before men so that they would glorify our Father in heaven.

This type of works happens because of love. The Spirit living within us loves others and does the good works to show that love. There is nothing done out of obligation or rule keeping. When works are done out of necessity, they are basically dead works.

Works done through love by the power of God within us brings glory to the Father and shows His love to those around us.

Works will happen because we love the Father and because the Spirit dwells within us. If our works only come out of obligation or due to rule keeping, we might as well stop right now. If we do good works to earn our salvation, or make us feel like we are doing our part, we should stop and question our motives.

Jesus did all that was necessary and required for us to have a relationship with the Father. We can’t earn it or pay God back for it. We can accept the free gift of grace and enjoy living as one with God. Then let Him love others as His does the good works through us.

As with any part of our walk with God, it is because of love that we do anything. We are to be available anytime, anywhere for the Spirit to work through us.

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Simple Truths from Outside the Walls

Posted in christian living, Community, The church, tagged , , , , , , , on August 23, 2013| 2 Comments »

I’ve read many articles about church abuse. Seems many Christians have been through bad times in the organized church and they have become angry and frustrated with the system. Certainly understandable.

For me, I can’t say I went through anything I would call abuse in the system. I grew up in church and was very active over the years. I truly felt I was doing what was pleasing to God and I earnestly was trying to learn and do what He would want me to do.

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So when I hear all the abuse stories and all the troubling times in organized religion, I don’t always understand. I know there are many people in the modern, organized church that truly love God and are trying to please him. I also realize there are many people who were unduly abused in various ways during their church life, and that is very sad.

For me, after several years of being unsatisfied with the system and feeling there certainly had to be more to it than what I had been part of, I dropped out of traditional church. Obviously this has to be something you feel is right for you, and I don’t think it is a good thing to tell people they should do the same. This is a choice that each believer has to make for themselves. I came to this conclusion after many years of seeing things, questioning things, reading things and just being completely frustrated with the system of organized religion.

I have no regrets in leaving, although I have no regrets for being a part of it for so many years either. I did learn a lot and made a lot of good friends. Of course because of the years involved, there are many beliefs and ideas I need to detox from now.

For now, feeling the system is wrong, I have decided to walk with God outside the walls of the organized church. Not that anyone is intentionally trying to do what is wrong but the whole modern-day organized church is off base. Granted, the system is the only thing we know. It’s been this way for years and we grew up with it and thought it was the way it should be.

We have it engrained in us that to assemble ourselves together is to go to church on Sunday morning and sit through a scheduled program. No where does scripture tell us that assembling together has to be done in a particular way, at a special time or in a set place.

We are told that the pastor is the spiritual head and he is who we learn from and come under authority and guidance. Of course God tells us that Jesus is the head of the church, which is his body, and the Holy Spirit is our teacher and we need no one to teach us other than him.

We are taught that we are saved by grace, but we need to live by the law to be pleasing to God. Reading through Paul’s teachings, it is easy to see that we live by grace, and trying to live under law is a curse (Galatians 3:10-13). Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant and the Law for us because we couldn’t. Jesus did the work, Jesus died and ended the Old Covenant. Upon his resurrection, the New Covenant began and we now live by grace. The New Covenant commands are to love God with all our heart and love others.

The Law was a tutor to show us that we were completely incapable of keeping the law and living a perfect life. Only Jesus was able to live a perfect life. For us Christians, a tutor is no longer needed because we have come to Christ and depend on his work and grace.

We are taught that the Bible is the true, living, inerrant word of God. John 1:1 tells us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. To me that says that Jesus is the living Word. The Bible is the inspired words of God, but we are not to look to the Bible as the all-powerful, inerrant source of what God has to say. We should look to Jesus who is our all in all, our very life.

We are taught to tithe, although that is not taught under the New Covenant. Giving as we see a need and as we feel lead is now done out of love, not tithing to the church as a requirement. I personally feel the church today is more of a big business than it is a religious organization. Tithing is pushed because the organization needs to have the bills and the salaries paid.

We are told we are poor sinners saved by grace and that we are weak, unrighteous worms who are unworthy of God’s love. Now apart from God, we are nothing. We can’t live a perfect life and we were not worthy to be in God’s presence. BUT, because of Christ and the work he has done, we were given the gift of righteousness. Apart from Christ, yes, we were poor sinners, but through Christ the sin nature was crucified and we were raised up with him as new creatures. We are now the house of God, and we are holy and righteous in his sight because of Christ.

People want to put themselves under the authority of a pastor or the elders of the church, but God says we are all kings and priests and Jesus is the head. We all have something to say when we come together to build one another up. There are no levels of authority among believers. We are all equal parts of his body and have equal parts to play in encouraging and building one another up.

I think an important fact for us to remember today is that no matter if you are ‘in church’ or outside the walls, we should be looking to each other in love and not fight and argue amongst ourselves. Whether you are going to church, you are going for the Lord, or if you don’t go to church, you are doing so for the Lord. Accept each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, pray for one another, encourage one another, and stop looking down on people who see things differently than you.

Even those outside of Christianity need our love, not our condemnation. Jesus loved those who the ‘religious leaders’ of his day didn’t want to have association. We want our Christian church, Christian schools, Christian dating sites, Christian this, Christian that, whatever we can do to be separate and apart from the non-Christians, yet we were told to go into all the world. That certainly doesn’t mean we are to act like the world, but we do need to love all those that are around us.

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I truly feel that being a person in Christ is a daily lifestyle. Being the church is a 24/7 way of life, not a Sunday only thing. God said that He is building His church and that He no longer lives in buildings made with hands. We are the church, we are God’s house. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the body of Christ. We function together as equal parts of the body under the headship of Jesus. We may be the only Jesus a lot of people will ever know.

We need to adjust our way of thinking and realize that church and Christianity are not a religion. It is a lifestyle we live day by day. Jesus is our life, it should be no longer us trying and doing, but resting in what Christ has done for us. We are in Christ and it is him living in us day by day that makes the difference.

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Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , on June 12, 2013| 1 Comment »

This is a familiar line from a popular movie several years back. I think we can relate this to our walk with God.

According to the true love story, the love God has for mankind, this phrase would go more like, love means never having to repent again.

In today’s world, we seem to be more sin conscious than grace conscious. Most of us are running around wondering how we can overcome sin and live a life that is pleasing to God. Of course the trouble with this way of living is that we can’t do it. The main reason is because God has already taken care of the sin problem through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The only way we can live a life pleasing to God is by relying on the strength of the Spirit within us, living by the power of Jesus. He is the vine, we are the branches. We can do these things only by His strength.

Jesus came into our world, born under the law, and lived a perfect life. This made Him acceptable as a perfect lamb, without spot or blemish, to be sacrificed once and for all, for the sin nature of mankind.

Our sin nature was crucified with Christ, and when we look to Him as our sacrifice, we are raised up as new creatures in Him. Obviously, we can’t do any of this on our own. We can’t pay for it or earn it or pay God back for what He has done. It’s a gift.

Now that the sin nature is gone, are we going to live perfect lives? Unfortunately no. The sin nature is gone, but we still have a natural mind and body. We still live in a fallen world and are continually influenced by worldly ways.

The problem is we sometimes focus more on sin and the way we used to be, that we forget who we now are in Christ. We go around saying we are just a sinner saved by grace. That was true, but now we are kings and priests, we are holy and righteous in God’s sight, all because of Christ.

It’s time we stop thinking so low of ourselves and start realizing that in Christ, we are holy and righteous. Certainly not in our own strength, or by anything we have done, but through the cross of Christ.

We no longer have to repent, since our sin nature and our past, present and future sins were taken care of at the cross.

The big difference here is the meaning of repent. The true meaning of repent is to change our mind or way of thinking. I think this is something we do all the time. As God reveals more truth to us, we repent, or change our way of thinking and become more in tune with His ways.

The traditional church’s idea of repent usually means come to the altar, confess your sins and get right with God. I don’t think we have to do this type of repenting but one time. Once we come to God through Christ, repent of our sinful nature and ask Him to forgive us, we no longer need to come to Him and repent over and over. Christ died once for the sins of the world, and that covered the sin nature for all time. We don’t have to keep coming back to God, repenting of our sinful nature.

When we do sin, we can change our mind as to how we want to live and be more God-like. All we need to do is say to God, I’m sorry for messing up, thank you for grace that has taken care of this and thank you that I am holy and righteous in your sight because of Christ.

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Spiritual Man

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , , on April 30, 2013|

Galatians 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

We are made in the likeness of God, that is, three in one. We are spirit, soul (mind) and body.

We were born under the curse of the law because of the fall of man through Adam. Our spirit man, soul and body were subject to trying to earn our salvation by following the law, which we could not do, eventually leading to death.

Through Christ and the grace He provided through His perfect life, death and resurrection, we were made new creatures in Him. Our old sinful spirit man was crucified and buried with Christ. He took our sins and nailed them to His cross.

We now have a new righteous spirit man within us. We still have a soul (mind) that needs renewed and an earthly body that will one day be changed into a spiritual body, but for now, God sees us as the righteousness of Christ, who lives within us by His Spirit.

Naturally speaking we will never be perfect on this earth, but because of the grace of Christ, God sees us spiritually as perfect already.

This doesn’t give us permission to live as we want and do whatever, but now we live for God and do what pleases Him out of love and not out of obligation. We now take up our cross daily and follow Him, allowing Him to increase as we decrease.

When you make a mistake, it is covered. We don’t have to repent each time, but we do acknowledge we made a mistake and thank God for His Grace that covers it.

A good thing to confess out loud after allowing our mind or body to take control is ‘I am the righteousness of God’. This will help us to remember God’s gift of grace and get us focused on our spiritual position in Christ.

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Two Ways of Life

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on March 26, 2013|

Galatians 3:10-13: For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”.

Today’s Christian seems to live in two worlds. Not only the spiritual world and the earthly world, but the Old Covenant and New Covenant world. The problem with the Old and New Covenant combination is that if we don’t live by and obey all things written in the Law, we are living under a curse.

The Law was given to the ungodly as a tutor and guide to show us that on our own, we can’t measure up. We can’t live a life acceptable to God and the perfection He demands. Righteousness doesn’t come through the Law, and if it did, then Christ died needlessly. Jesus came into this world born under the Law. He lived and taught it for the first 33 years of His life. When He died, the Old Covenant came to an end because Jesus lived a perfect life and fulfilled the Old Covenant. When He rose from the grave, the New Covenant began.

By accepting the grace He provided, we can live a life pleasing to God. God sees Christ in us, and we are now counted as holy and righteous in His sight. The Law is no longer needed for those saved by grace. We are free, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law. We now live under the New Covenant, one that is a free gift provided to us by Christ. We now live by Christ’s commands to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and love others as ourselves.

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Grow in Grace

Posted in christian living, tagged , , on February 20, 2013|

2 Peter 3:18 — but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen

We are saved by Grace. A one time event of Christ dying on the cross provided all we needed to be saved from the curse brought upon us through Adam.

But Grace itself is an ongoing, daily event. We aren’t saved and then just sit around and wait to go to Heaven. Jesus told us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. We learn more about Christ and the grace He provided by daily dying to ourselves.

By Grace our sinful nature is crucified, dead and buried. By Grace we are resurrected in the power of Christ and it is His spirit that now lives within us. By grace we are now hidden in Christ, and He is seated at the right hand of God (Colossian 3:1-3). We don’t just wait until we die our natural life to enter His Kingdom, we now live in the Kingdom of God.

He said we must decrease, and He must increase. Only by dying to self and emptying our natural human desires can there be room for Christ to increase.

When we realize that only by dying (spiritually speaking) and allowing the life of Christ to dwell within us, can we truly follow Him. It has been said that a dead man has no worries. When we are dead to self, and alive to Christ, it is His life that is within us. His desires become our desires. His thoughts become our thoughts.

We are saved by Grace, we can’t buy it, can’t earn it, can’t do anything to pay God back for it. Each day we can commit ourselves to God, ask Christ to live through us and daily deny the human nature and selfish desires that separate us from true fellowship with the Father.

Grace is an ongoing, daily lifestyle. It is our choice to commit to Him. When we do, we will continue to grow in grace and knowledge of Him, and will enjoy our fellowship with our Father.

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What Must We Do?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on October 3, 2012|

What would you tell someone who asked you what a Christian must do to be pleasing to God?

A lot of people would start out by saying we must go to church, we must tithe, we must obey the 10 commandments. They would probably say we have to witness to others and give our money to the poor, and probably even some in the USA would say we must vote republican.

Seems like we Christians are so hung up on works and doing something in our efforts to be pleasing to God. We must do this, we have to do that. If we aren’t going to church we are backsliding. If we don’t tithe to the church we are robbing God. We have all these things we feel we should be doing to be pleasing to God.

I think a lot of the Christian world today has forgotten that Jesus died on the cross to fulfill the Old Covenant. He said “it is finished”, meaning the old covenant had come to an end because Christ, by living a perfect life, became the absolute perfect lamb for a sacrifice that would once and for all provide forgiveness to humans, who in their own efforts, could not live up to the requirements of the law.

I think the real answer to the question what must a Christian do to be pleasing to God is…..nothing! We don’t have to do anything because God provided Grace through Christ. We have become the righteousness of God because after salvation, God sees Christ in us. It isn’t based on what we have done, it is all on what He has done.

We not longer have to try to keep the 10 commandments. Those were a guide, or tutor, to lead us to Christ. We no longer have to go to church because through Christ, we are the Church. We can assemble together with other believers any day, any where. Christ lives in us and the Holy Spirit is our teacher and guide. We don’t need to look to others for guidance and knowledge. We don’t have to tithe our money because the Old covenant has been fulfilled. We can now give our money out of love and to who and where God is leading us to give. We don’t have to force every encounter with someone to witness to them because the Holy Spirit is the one who draws all men to the Father, and since He lives in us, we can be open to allow Him to work in us how He pleases.

So many Christians today don’t realize the freedom we have in Christ. They don’t understand Grace and the fact that we are no longer under condemnation. We don’t have to do things to be pleasing to God. We now live under the guidance of the Spirit and we do things out of love, not out of obligation and trying to keep rules and commands.

The only commands Christ gave under the New Covenant are listed in 1 John 3:23 where it is written: This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.

So many of us live day to day under condemnation because we haven’t done enough for God. We feel we don’t measure up because we can’t do something someone else does, or we can’t preach like someone else can. The fact is, God made us all the way we are for a reason. In the true Church, the body of Christ, we all are equal and have equally important qualities that God can use. No one is on a higher level than anyone else. We are all brothers and sisters and we are all under one person, Jesus Christ.

Stop feeling like you aren’t pleasing to God because of something you do or something you don’t do. Christ has provided Grace for all of us, and there is nothing we can do to earn it or pay for it.

We can rest in God’s love. We can enjoy daily fellowship with Him because He loves us. We can be assured that we are now in the Kingdom for eternity because of what Christ has done for us. We can stop listening to others who we think are on a higher level than us, or who we think are closer to God. God loves each of His children equally. We are all capable of hearing and learning from the Holy Spirit, who is within us. We don’t have to wait until Sunday to hear from Him, worship Him, serve Him because we are the Church and every day is the Lord’s day.

Stop condemning yourself and look to God, love Him and love others. Let Him teach you, guide you, live through you day by day. There is nothing more you need to do than accept Him, love Him and love others. We are now new creatures in Him. We now live in His Kingdom. Forget the worldly ways and the rules and regulations of religion. Take up your cross daily and follow Him.

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No Condemnation

Posted in christian living, tagged , , on September 27, 2012| 1 Comment »

Romans 8:1-9 – Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,  and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

The above verses are talking about how in Christ, we are no longer under condemnation and guilt due to sin. Christ came and took our sin and nailed it to His cross. The Old Testament Law, which was a tutor and guide to show us our need of a Savior, was fulfilled, it was crucified and buried with Christ.

When it talks about the flesh, it is talking about those who are not saved and still under the tutor of the Law. They are still under condemnation and guilt because they, in the flesh, cannot please God, whether they try by their good works or don’t try at all. There is nothing they can do to make things right. They are still in the flesh, or another way of saying it, in the spirit of Adam.

Being in the Spirit is to be saved through Christ. You are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. And we know that if we have accepted Christ’s gift of salvation, the Spirit comes and lives in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are now living in the Spirit. We are hidden in Christ, seated with Him at the right hand of the Father. Our spirit man is perfect and holy because of Christ. The old sinful nature has been crucified with Christ and we have been raised as new creatures in Him.

Although we still have a body that is imperfect, and a mind that needs to be renewed…our spirit man has been raised up in Christ as a new creature.

Praise God that we are no longer under condemnation, guilt and shame that the Law brought upon us. We are now the righteousness of God. We can now live in the freedom that Christ provided for us.

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Living in Grace

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on May 11, 2012| 2 Comments »

There seems to be some confusion among Christians in regard to grace living and law living. I usually don’t write this long of an article, but felt the added scriptures were necessary to show that living by the law is no longer necessary, thanks to the grace Jesus provided.

I think the mistake a lot of  Christians make is that we don’t truly accept the whole idea of grace. Grace is a free gift given to us by God. When Jesus died, he took all our sins upon Himself and destroyed them, covering them with His blood. We were totally unable to fulfill the law and live a perfect life, so He lived a perfect life for us and then took our sinful nature upon Himself and provided salvation for all who would accept Him (Galatians 2:16, 19-21  nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified… For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly”).

He then put His perfect, righteous nature in us and made us sons and daughters of God. Nothing we did, and nothing we can do can add to it, or pay for it. It is a totally free gift provided by Christ. It is hard for us to accept this without feeling the need to do something to justify God’s love for us. We think that if we do this or that and don’t do this sin or that sin, then we are worthy to come to God. This is performance based living and not grace. Grace is a gift. Grace is God seeing us as perfect and righteous, not of our own doing, but the free gift provided by Jesus’ blood.

Jesus lived by the 10 commandments, but here is the important part, we need to remember that Jesus lived under the Old Covenant Law (Galatians 4:4,5 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons). Jesus had to live by and obey all the commandments, ceremonial rules and laws so He could fulfill the old covenant. Jesus said on the cross, ‘it is finished’, meaning He had lived under the Old Covenant, lived a perfect life and fulfilled the law, thereby making Him the perfect sacrificial Lamb that would take away the sins of the world.

Not until the time of His death and resurrection was the Law fulfilled and a New Agreement took effect. The new covenant did not start until this time. This new agreement is one in which we live by grace, and not by trying to fulfill the Law, which we never could do in the first place. That is why Jesus came to earth, because we could not live a perfect life and keep all the commands and laws of the Old Agreement. So since the old covenant has been fulfilled and we live by grace, why do so many of us still feel a need to try to live by old testament rules and regulations, since we never could do it anyway? Why do we seem to want to put ourselves back under slavery to an old testament set of rules when Christ has already fulfilled them and done away with that need (Galatians 5:1-4 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision (a part of the law), Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace). When we accepted Christ as our sacrifice, we in a sense died also. And since we died, we can now live free from the law (Romans 7:1-8 “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “you shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead”).

Before grace, we could not live up to the law because we are an imperfect people. Now that Jesus has become our perfect sacrifice and fulfilled what we could not, we are saved by grace and we live a perfect sinless life in God’s eyes because of the gift He gave us. We are sinless in God’s eyes because of Christ, although we still fall from time to time in this life, it is all covered by the blood of Christ, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. We are no longer required to live up to the Law that we couldn’t live up to in the first place. If we try to fulfill the Law but fall in just one area, we are guilty of all the law and worthy of death.

Now that we live by grace and faith in Jesus, the law, which was our tutor to point out our sin, is no longer needed (Galatians 3:23-26  But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (the law). For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus). To say we need to live trying to obey the 10 commandments is saying that Jesus blood alone was not enough to cleanse us from our sins.

The Bible goes so far as to say that if we still try to live by obeying the old covenant law we live under a curse (Galatians 3:10-13 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “the righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “he who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”).

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Mat. 5:43-48). Obviously there is no way we can do this on our own, and God wouldn’t have told us to be perfect without making a way for us to do it. The only way we can be perfect, is through grace. Accepting the free gift of grace through Christ will allow us to live out the new covenant commands of Christ, which are to accept Christ, love God and love others. The law that is mentioned under the new covenant is always to accept Jesus, love God and love others (Galatians 5:14  For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”; (1 John 3:23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us); (1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also); (2 John 1:6  And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love). We are totally incapable of living up to the law and we are no longer required to do so. Christ died and by His grace, He put His righteousness in us and we are perfect and righteous in God’s sight.

God has provided such a fantastic gift of freedom for us, and most of us today just don’t realize all that entails. Because of grace, it is as though we have never sinned and will never sin. Not because of anything we have done, or can do, but because God loves us enough that he sent his Son to take our sins, past present and future, and because of His grace we stand perfect in the eyes of God. Now we need to walk in that freedom and follow the Spirit, loving God, loving others and not worry about the old covenant law, but live a life for God through love (Galatians 5:16-18  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law).

Thanks be to God, we now live in grace, not trying to live up to rules and laws that we cannot do on our own, being free in Christ and living a life of love for God and for all we come in contact. We no longer do things because we are bad or displeasing to God if we don’t, but now we do them because we love God and want to do what pleases Him.

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Let me Point Out Your Mistakes

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on May 3, 2012|

Ever wonder why people are so quick to condemn others? Especially when it comes to areas where they don’t have a problem. They want to point out the mistakes we’ve made mainly because it makes them feel better about themselves. More than likely they haven’t made that particular mistake, so condemning you makes them feel better about other areas of their life.

What about the spiritually self-righteous who feel they are better than everyone else. They think they’ve lived a life of good works, church attendance and not being involved in specific actions that are ‘wrong’. This makes them feel better and able to tell other people how bad they are.

Seems everyone forgets that we all have messed up, we all have failed in one point or another and none of us are worthy of salvation. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Thankfully through Christ and the free gift He provided by living a perfect life, fulfilling the Old Testament Law, and by His death being the sacrifice for us, we can be forgiven of our sins and be made the righteousness of God.

We really need to stop arguing and pointing out mistakes of others. It is not our job to condemn people, nor is it our job to convert people. We are called to love others as we love ourselves, and it doesn’t say only Christians, or only those who agree with us. Everyone has the right to be themselves. We are to be ready to love them and allow the Holy Spirit to use us when He wants, but it is His job to work in their lives to lead them to the Father. God loves us no matter what. There is nothing we can do to cause Him to love us more, and nothing we can do to cause Him to love us less.

People are all the same, they want to be loved and accepted. That is our job as Christians, to love and accept them for who they are and the way they are. No one is better than anyone else, it’s just that those who accept Christ and have their sins forgiven are seen by God as righteous because of Christ. There is nothing any of us can do to make anyone worthy of that gift.

We should not be going around looking down on anyone, condemning anyone, or thinking more highly of ourselves. Only by accepting grace through Christ, the free gift of God, can anyone be considered any different from anyone else, and that difference is being forgiven for all our sin, past, present and future.

If you are saved by grace, next time someone wants to point out a mistake or remind you of your past and says, “what would Jesus say about that”, just tell them that He would say…”you have been cleansed by my blood, you are perfect and righteous in my sight”.

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