To you...

Hey there fellow readers and bloggers...yes you know who you are....(and so does He)..thanks for all the encouragement and great things you write...i pray God blesses you all with great revelation of His goodness, Kindness and Grace....

What a wonderful thought to know we are on journey together looking for truth, i mean Truth....looking for His grace, we KNOW that there is more to church, Christianiy, holiness, discipleship and all those other things than what we've been taught...and by the grace of God we are finding it!!

BTW...if you have'nt listened to Rob Rufus' latest preach "The Parable of the Sower", i encourage you to take a listen, its really GOOD...here's the link... http://www.citychurchinternational.net/2008.html

May the love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all...

Later

...the control spirit...

"We don't need ministry to be important or to be doing things to be worth something! We are righteous! We are important! We have identity! And the more secure we become in our identity in our righteousness, the more ministry He will give you! Everyone in this room wants to be used by God and do you know why? Because in this coming wave of the glory God will use every Christian who deals with the control spirit and gets it off their life and stops controlling others and deals with condemnation and gets it off their life. Those who get equipped will be ready for this next move! Those who do not open to the message of righteousness will not be ready for the next move!".

Rob Rufus - "Invading the Impossible - Part 11" - City Church International, Hong Kong - Sunday 23rd March 2008.

JESUS TOOK THE PUNISHMENT!

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us - for it is written, "cursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree" Gal 3:13

Jesus took the punishment, He took the wrath of God in my stead...i sinned and He took the punishment...i mean that is radical.

I now believe on Jesus and i am Justified (just-as-if-i'd-never-sinned) why...BECAUSE he took the punishment on the cross!

People say that the "message of grace" trivialises sin, no sir, on the contrary...i makes sin out to be as bad as it REALLY is...it is SO bad that Gods only Son, was sent ( and went) to the cross, to become a propitiation for us, so that the wrath of God would be absorbed in Him, thus taking on himself what we rightly deserved...

Then, at the end of those 3 long hours, He said "IT IS FINISHED", meaning, I have absorbed the entirety of the wrath of the Father...it is over...from now on ALL who believe on Me will never have to absorb the wrath of the Father...So...Christ redeemed us from the curse, from death, from wrath, by His own death...

...and to show that, justice had been done, that God was "satisfied"...HE raised Him on the third day!

That doesnt mean that i can just go live like the devil, of course not, what it means is that i am now the righeousness of God in Christ...when i sin, and i do, everyday...God is not wrathful towards me...there is no punishment waiting for me...there is only Grace, saying, "come my boy, come to me. i love you, so much that i took it all, all the punishment, all the judgement, all the curse...all thats left is for you to believe and to see yourself as i see you, 100% righteous..."

Christianity, simple really.

"Christianity is not in it's essence a religion at all; it is a gospel, the gospel, the good news that God's grace has turned away His wrath, that God's Son has died our death and bourne our judgement, that God has mercy on the undeserving and there is nothing left for us to do or to contribute. Faith's only function is to receive what grace offers".

John R W Stott - "BST Series - The Message of Romans

Oh, why do we have to complicate things so much...

Go on, take a leap, preach grace !!

"FAITH IS NOT A BLIND LEAP INTO THE DARK, ITS A LEAP INTO THE LIGHT." Rob Rufus

To embrace this message of grace, the gospel of grace, is a leap of faith...there is no doubt about it. We started a church called Gracelife a few months back, and i can tell you it has been a leap of faith...not to start a church for starting a church's sake...no...i believe anybody, with the right charisma and the right leadership skills, with enough drive can start a church, but it will probably become "same old" because he will use all the "right" building principles, all the "right" marketing strategies, all the "right" commitment slogans, all the secular world uses to grow something...then when it does grow and it will, he will say "God did it"....

We started Gracelife because we believe in this message, we believe God will honour it....He already is!!

We want to preach nothing but acceptance grace, if you want to be commited sir or ma'am, be commited to the message of grace, be committed to growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ....let God build...let God "fashion and shape", let God add, yes, let God build....its His Bride, His Church, His building........just let us preach the "right" message, the right gospel, "freedom in the grace of Christ"...i tell you it takes faith, security in Him, trust in Him...but its exciting......people have said, "its too much freedom, it won't grow, it wont work"...lets wait and see shall we, lets wait and see...

He is Faithfull...

We ARE because He IS...

"Faith always looks at problems in the light of the promises ... He knew that God could keep His promises (because of His power) and He knew that He would do so (because of His faithfulness). He was fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why, Paul adds, namely because He believed God's promise; "It was credited to him as righteousness". Rob Rufus

"The promise in mind must still be Genesis 15:5 that Abraham's posterity would be as numerous as the stars. It was a promise without any conditions or requirements attached to it. God's Word came to Abraham as a gratitutious promise - not as law. He simply believed God and was justified". John Stott

The promise of God through faith is..."Christ in you, the hope of glory"...i.e. 100% righteous. His very own righteousness...that we would walk as Jesus did...with faith in THAT righteousness, faith in THAT holiness, faith in THAT word....faith in the FACT that we ARE because He IS.......

He loves YOU !!

"Imagine God looking at you. He is smiling, at times laughing out loud with joy. He adores you and its obvious."

by Steve McVey

graced based vs law (law/grace) based churches

"This (an acceptance-grace-based-only church) is a church responsive to the variety of needs found in an increasingly fluid culture. In that church, all the spiritual DNA for the city/community in which it exists is resident even in its embryonic form. However, a “solid” law-driven church will eventually find itself stranded from its culture. Many times its focus is behavior and not belief, growing in numbers and not in grace. It can become a “walled in” community. Organic church, founded on grace, is characterized by “presence among” and flows OUT. John 1:14 describes the Lord’s whereabouts in relation to culture as, “dwelling among… full of grace and truth”. I like the Message Bible’s rendering as well, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood…”

This going out, however, is the result of a church environment filled with and focused on the “Word of His grace”; an atmosphere of God’s love and acceptance building us up and bringing us into more and more of our inheritance in Christ. It’s the church as an “airport” where we land, refuel on God’s grace, and take off into culture empowered by the living God - overflowing acceptance and meeting needs redemptively. Acts 11:21 says of such a church that “…the presence of the Lord was with them with power, so that a great number believed and turned and surrendered themselves to Him”. These Scriptures describe a church culture, not structure. A culture bringing Christ near. No wonder it is said of them that “great grace rested richly upon them all”. (Acts 4:33)."

by Jim Hoag of Mission now (italics mine)

Deeply entrenched legalism...

"Layers of law and a deeply entrenched legalism have cut many Christians off from living directly unto their heavenly Father. And, obviously, the enemy does not want to see that gap bridged and Christians coming into full assurance of their sonship. In fact, one of Satan’s highest priorities is to divert as many believers as possible from recognizing the totality of God’s grace, to hide the truth that we are righteous and accepted by God through grace and grace alone. Why? To make Christ of no value and no effect in our lives. Revelation of God’s acceptance grace empowers us to WANT fellowship with Him, and sin has no appeal in that atmosphere. Jesus has uninterrupted favor and love from the Father. In Christ, we have uninterrupted love and favor from the Father as well."

By Jim Hoag of Mission Now

...no room for it.

"Rom 3:21-28 But now we are seeing the righteousness of God declared quite apart from the Law (though amply testified to by both Law and Prophets)--it is a right relationship given to, and operating in, all who have faith in Jesus Christ. For there is no distinction to be made anywhere: everyone has sinned, everyone falls short of the glory of God's plan. A man who has faith is now freely acquitted in the eyes of God by his generous dealing in the redemptive act of Christ Jesus... What happens now to human pride of achievement? There is no more room for it... the whole matter is now on a different plane--believing instead of achieving. We see now that a man is justified before God by the fact of his faith in God's appointed Saviour and not by what he has managed to achieve under the Law."

by Acts 17:11 Bible Studies

...are pitted against each other.

"Conceptually, in Scripture, law and grace are pitted against each other as irreconcilable approaches to being put right (justified) with God. The law seeks to restrain, in the main, the passions of the carnal nature. "Don't do this and that", etc. The gospel of grace seeks to put to death all that is carnal in us, so that a new and eternal life can be born in us. What the law could never do, the Holy Spirit by resurrection grace can."

by Acts 17:11 Bible Studies

...on error of approach.

"This focus on error of approach--of thinking we can earn God's approval by what we do--might seem like a fine distinction, but Scripture could not be more clear or strident. We cannot earn salvation, no one will have bragging rights in heaven, nor will God accept any "works" or "fruit" that come from self-generated do-good intentions.

Human religious energy is NOT something God has any interest in. In fact, since He has made provisions for us to access His very life and power, to choose to live in our own human resources is to reject His grace. His life, received by grace, will result in good works--to be sure. But how we approach God is critically important.

Are we hoping in the grace and power of Christ Jesus, or are we hoping to impress God or earn His favor on our own merits? The difference is as wide as heaven and hell."

by Acts 17:11 Bible Studies

...the choice before us all.

"Abel brought a blood sacrifice, foreshadowing "the grace that was to come". God accepted Abel's sacrifice, but not Cain's. Cain might have learned from this, as he had clearly seen the right approach from his brother's example. But rather than accept this, he grew surly and eventually killed Abel. Consider that Cain was trying to please God--was he not? -- even though he came before the Lord in error. From this mistake in approach, when Cain refused to receive corrective instruction he indeed found "sin crouching at his door" of an unimaginable sort, just as he had been warned.

For if we are not of the grace of God, then we are on our own and sin "desires to have us" in ways that will lead to various sorts of death. This is the ultimate drama of history, and the choice before us all: It is grace or the law; God's promise or our efforts; life or death."

by Acts 17:11 Bible Studies

"weak and miserable principles"

"Paul writes that the Galatians are ``turning back to those weak and miserable principles''. But you can only go back to what you've previously been in.........

The ``weak and miserable principles'' are those that underly every religion, not just Judaism: the attempt to earn God's approval by doing good deeds and avoiding bad ones. This is the fundamental difference that separates Christianity from every other religion: we simply accept God's love while religions try to earn what is freely given.

This is truly ``Amazing Grace''.
We too easily grow used to the thinking of the world that surrounds us - in contravention of Paul's exhortation, ``Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.'' (Romans 12:2). There are plenty of non-Christians who actively do not want grace - their attitude is, ``No-one's ever given me anything; everything I have, I earned myself.''

This position is based on an appalling misunderstanding of the relationship between God and man - yet it is so prevalent that elements of it can seep into our own thinking.

Among the reasons that even Christians who know better can slip into this mode of thinking:
Unbelief in God's grace - we need to keep reminding ourselves of Amazing Grace because it's so different from our experience of the world."

by Mike Taylor

IN HIM

"GOD MADE HIM WHO KNEW NO SIN TO BECOME SIN, SO THAT IN HIM, WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD."

Acceptance, in the beloved.

"The basis for our relationship with one another is Christ's relationship with us. We are to "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God" (Romans 15:7). It is this acceptance that brings glory to God. Christ's acceptance of us is gracious, total, unreserved, unprejudiced, forgiving and freeing. Our acceptance of one another is to be similar. We have no mandate in the Christian church to decide who we will accept and who we won't. All who receive the Holy Spirit are members of the family. "

from The New Testament Emphasis on Relationships

GRACE...

ONE WAY

I like how this one guy puts this...

"When we think of the church in organizational (business like) rather than community and relational terms, it distorts our values. We give lip service to biblical values but in practice other values predominate."

I have come to realise that when we preach a mixture of law and grace, old covenant and new covenant, old wineskin and new wineskin, we can't help but produce organizational, business-like, intrinsically unbiblical valued churches, it just happens, even if we never intended to............BUT, when we preach grace (acceptance, exclusively), we can't help but produce what God originally had in mind, gloriously free and relationally strong (even if you dont see each other every day) churches.....

One choice really....what you's think?

His righteousness, no more, no less...

"The incarnate Son, dying in our room, the realized ideal of what man was made to be, is made of God unto us righteousness (1 Cor. i. 30), in such a sense that we are said to be made the righteousness of God in Him. This is more remarkable: we are made all that Christ was; He is the Lord our righteousness (Jer. xxiii. 6), and we are made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. v. 21)."

George Smeaton

"Ungospel"

"In the public square Christians are sadly known as people who specialize in judging others - who is moral and immoral, who is saved and who is damned. To a certain extent we do need to be able to evaluate our world, and to recognize things that are messed around us. Everyone does in fact do this. It's impossible not to. But the response that should characterize us as Christians is that of grace not condemnation. Grace recognizes that there is real wrong and hurt, real sin and evil in us and in our world, but instead of responding with condemnation, grace responds by "always hoping, always believing, always trusting".

Grace does not deny or ignore the reality of brokenness in our lives, it does not pretend that we are not screwed up. Instead Grace defiantly loves and hopes in the face of our failure and stupidness. Grace counterintuitively seeks to redeem the lost causes. It looks at the reality of our world filled with suffering and injustice and insists that despite all this, we choose to believe that God's grace will still win the day.Grace is what we should be known for as followers of Christ, but sadly we Christians are largely known for what Phillip Yancy has called 'ungrace'. Ungrace is "that state of being in which self-righteousness and pride are a result of thinking that we have somehow earned God's approval and may now stand in judgment in his behalf."

In a rather amusing passage from Church Dogmatics Karl Barth sums up how ridiculous we look when we try and take on God's roll in judging, "Man thinks he sits on a high thrown, but in reality he sits only on a child's stool, blowing his little trumpet, cracking his little whip, pointing with frightful seriousness his little finger, while all the time nothing happens that really matters. He can only play the judge." (CD IV/2 60.2, p.446)

We may think we are battling for God in our outspoken condemnation of wrong around us, but if we are not doing this in a radical spirit of grace, then we are simply not representing Christ and God. If there is one single sin in the New Testament that is seen as the most severe, the most harmful, it is the loveless judgmentalism exhibited by the religious leaders. The harshest words of Jesus are reserved for condemning exatly this sin, and Paul in Galatians has a cow when that church begins to buy into this way, asking them incredulously if they have completely lost their minds and telling them that in following this way of judgment and law they have "fallen away from grace". He means that quite literally because the way of judgmentalism exhibited by the religious leaders of our day is the opposite of grace. It is, Paul says, and 'ungospel'."

from the Rebel God

Confess? Yes, who YOU are!

"Speaking to the Rock is confession. Confession is Homo Logo in Greek. Homo Logo is "speak the same", i.e. to speak the same as God speaks. Speaking the same as God speaks is positive confession; this confession is Christ centered and righteousness conscious. Whereas to confess what we have done wrong and ask God for forgiveness is a negative confession and this is self centered and sin conscious because we cannot believe He has forgiven us of all of our sins…!!!

1. What did God say about us? We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!
2. What did God say about our sin? We are forgiven, past, present and future! Hallelujah!
3. What did God say about our life? He came to give us life and life more abundantly!
4. What did God says about our financial standing? For I know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for my sakes He became poor, that I through His poverty might become rich. Hallelujah!
5. What did God says about our lacks? God says he who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, accordingly to the power that works in us. And my God shall supply all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus!
6. What did God says about our infirmity? By His strips we are healed!"

by Allan Hui

Craig says...I like how Allan put confession, in the positive sense, it makes sense to me, it ties in with the gospel of grace perfectly...how often we focus on the wrong thing....not believing what God says about US...which ultimatley points to His kind, awesome, just, beautiful, caring, generous, selfless character...Lord, I love you.....

Aquinas! Why i oughta...

This was so good, i just had to repost it!

"Thomas Aquinas, like all theologians between Paul and Luther, taught that all were “justified” before God by the good works of the new nature God’s grace works in us. The law helps to guide our good works (said Aquinas) the “old law” of Moses has permanent value to guide us in righteousness even though parts of it have been abolished. Thomas Aquinas had no idea of Paul’s teaching that Christ’s righteousness is “reckoned” ours when we believe in Jesus. His teaching became the basis of Roman Catholic doctrine...

The teaching of the gospel-preachers that we are justified only by faith scandalized the Catholics. “You are saying that we do not have to obey the law of God” they said. “Your so called gospel encourages sin”. Sound familiar?
The sixteenth century gospel-preachers replied, “Well, we are free from the law as a way of justification, but we still have the law (that is Aquinas’ moral law) as a way of sanctification.” This idea became dominant and Paul’s teaching that we have died to the law in order to bear fruit to God (that is in order to be sanctified!) was missed. It became the habit among Christians to talk about “the law” but mean only certain bits of the law of Moses (actually less than 1% of it!) and to say that this was a “rule of life” for the Christian.
We now need to ask the question, “How much of the traditional teachings of the churches grasped hold of Paul’s teachings?” And the answer is: Not much! Most of it is Aquinas more than Paul!"

Michael Eaton

COMMITED?

“Commitment preaching” or preaching that calls believers into a radical walk with God is a counterfeit without the message of God’s grace activating, motivating, and actually creating that commitment. Through the preaching of the Gospel of grace, the Spirit of God reveals God’s unconditional love and acceptance. By revelation, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are loved by the Father just as Jesus the Son is. The understanding of this reality then stirs up our love and affection for God. Romans 8:15,16 says, “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God”. “Abba Father” is our recognition of and affectionate response to God’s love. It is not a premise by which we “deduce” we are the children of God; it is the power which we know and delight in being the children of God. His love supernaturally activates and compels us to commit ourselves and offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Paul said in Romans 12:1, “In view of (all) the mercies of God, make a decisive dedication of your bodies (presenting all your members and faculties) as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service”. Reasonable service? Yes, but “in view” of something; in view of God’s unconditional acceptance and love found in Christ’s merciful finished work. We are not to labor in order to “muster up” commitment or be “guilted” into appropriate affection for God out of obligation."

Jim Hoag

Grace and Miracles and Freedom

"And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them". Mark 6:5

"He could there do NO miracles". Jesus marvels at unbelief and the only two He said had great faith were non-Jews outside of the covenant. This was because they weren't labouring under the condemnation of the Law. They weren't trying to merit the anointing of God! Yet in His own home town He couldn't do any miracles. The time is coming when we find it easier to do miracles among the heathen rather than churches”.

Ref: Rob Rufus - "Newfrontiers Prayer and Fasting – Session 2" – May 2007.

READ THIS !!

“Before we continue to unpack the principles in this radical statement (you died to the law Romans 7:4), it would be helpful to look at a difficulty that has sometimes been caused by this “dying to the law”. It has sometimes cause difficulty, because in the story of the church there has been a tendency to drift into moralism. When Paul spoke about “the law”, he was talking about everything that came to us through Moses. He said that we have died to the entire Mosaic system. It is not a way of justification or sanctification.

This doctrine of freedom from the Mosaic Law and life under the grace of God was soon forgotten. One does not have to go very far into the story of the church before you find little grasp of the grace of God in Jesus. Within a century the church became full of moralism, more than full of grace. The great Augustine had a grasp of the grace of God but even he never quite went back to the apostle Paul with regard to the teaching about “the law”.

In the thirteenth century a theologian named Thomas Aquinas was powerfully influential and wrote Summa Theologiae (a summery of theology), which included many pages on “the old law”, the law of God given on Sinai. Thomas Aquinas formulated a doctrine of law using as the framework the thought of the Greek Aristotle, plus Paul and Augustine.

He divided the law into three. The moral laws are the principles of right and wrong. For Aquinas they are the same as the “natural law”, the basic law on everyone’s conscience which can be deduced by unaided reason without the need of God word.. The ceremonial laws are the Old Testament legislation about sacrifices and holy days and so on. Aquinas thinks this part of the law is abolished, and is “not only dead, but deadly”. Then there are the judiciallaws which are regulations concerning justice which were special to the nation of Israel. He taught that judicial laws are “dead since they have no binding force but are not deadly”, and that if a ruler imposed them he was not guilty of sin.

Thomas Aquinas, like all theologians between Paul and Luther, taught that all were “justified” before God by the good works of the new nature God’s grace works in us. The law helps to guide our good works (said Aquinas) the “old law” of Moses has permanent value to guide us in righteousness even though parts of it have been abolished. Thomas Aquinas had no idea of Paul’s teaching that Christ’s righteousness is “reckoned” ours when we believe in Jesus. His teaching became the basis of Roman Catholic doctrine.

At the time of the reformation in the sixteenth century the gospel-preachers discovered the gospel of the Bible and especially of Paul. They discovered the Gospel of the Bible and especially of Paul. They discovered that justification was not at all by our own godliness but was by the righteousness of Jesus being reckoned ours. They saw clearly what Paul meant when he said we are not “justified by the works of the law”. So they rejected the teaching of Aquinas and others that justification comes by a mixture of faith and love and other aspects of godliness including law keeping. They said salvation comes by Jesus’ righteousness being given to us, and that is grasped by faith only. However they accepted the divisions into three.

The teaching of the gospel-preachers that we are justified only by faith scandalized the Catholics. “You are saying that we do not have to obey the law of God” they said. “Your so called gospel encourages sin”. Sound familiar?

The sixteenth century gospel-preachers replied, “Well, we are free from the law as a way of justification, but we still have the law (that is Aquinas’ moral law) as a way of sanctification.” This idea became dominant and Paul’s teaching that we have died to the law in order to bear fruit to God (that is in order to be sanctified!) was missed. It became the habit among Christians to talk about “the law” but mean only certain bits of the law of Moses (actually less than 1% of it!) and to say that this was a “rule of life” for the Christian.

We now need to ask the question, “How much of the traditional teachings of the churches grasped hold of Paul’s teachings?” And the answer is: Not much! Most of it is Aquinas more than Paul!

The time is ripe for us to take a step nearer to the Bible than ever before.We can stand on the shoulders of great men who have preceded us, and we shall learn things they did not see and yet they have helped us. “The law” is a case in point.

Paul quite clearly teaches that we have died to the law in order to be fruitful towards God. Is “being fruitful” justification or sanctification? It is sanctification. We died to the law “in order to live unto God” (Gal 2:19). Is “living unto God justification or sanctification? Clearly these verses say we have died to the law, not just in the matter of justification but with regard to our total relationship to God. Paul makes precisely this point to the Galatians. Having begun with the Spirit he asks, are you now going back to Mosaic law-keeping? The Galatians were already saved! They were wanting to turn back to the Mosaic Law as a means of being holy. It is this as Paul denounces as turning back to the flesh.

The truth is: we have to die to the law altogether! We have to relate differently to God if we are to be fruitful, if we are to “live to God”. At our point in the history of the church we must be ready to go beyond Calvin, behind Thomas Aquinas, behind Augustine, and back to Paul back to Jesus, back to walking in the Spirit. We shall fulfill the law, but we shall do so by walking in the Spirit”

Michael Eaton

...displayed on the cross...

"How on earth can Paul affirm that God does what He forbids others to do; that He does what He says He will Himself never do; that He does it habitually and that He even designates Himself, 'the God who justifies the wicked' or (we might say) "who righteous's the unrighteous"? It is preposterous! How can the righteous God act unrighteously and so overthrow the moral order, turning it upside down? It is unbelievable! Or rather it would be, if it were not for the Cross of Christ. Without the Cross, the justification of the unjust would be unjustified, immoral and therefore impossible. The only reason God "justifies the wicked" (Romans 4:5) is that "Christ died for the wicked" (Romans 5:6). Because He shed His blood in a sacrifical death for us sinners, God is able to justify the unjust".

John Stott

OH HIS LOVE, EXPRESSED THROUGH HIS GRACE, DISPLAYED ON THE CROSS, MADE VISIBLE IN THE GOSPEL...

The Key!

"When we preach Grace, we enforce the Victory. For hundreds of years, we have preached a watered down gospel. We've preached the Law from our pulpit instead of His grace. Instead of overcoming sin, we became sin-conscious. Instead of reigning, we struggled. Now is the time. Grace is the key to bringing back the miraculous to the Church."

Alex Choo

A graceless world..

"If you're walking in faith, you use faith as the rate of exchange between you and God. God is pleased with you even though your actions don't measure up. Your life may be a wreck, but God is still pleased with you. Our religion says that is hypocrisy. On the contrary, the worst sin is self-righteousness — the attitude that God owes it to you because you've been good.

The difficult thing is that there are no role models for grace. Your employer hires you based on performance. The parent-child relationship is based on performance, even though it shouldn't be. When it comes to God, your performance can't earn you anything. If you sin, you need a savior. It is your faith in Jesus that will grant you access to God.

Most people accept this level of grace when it pertains to salvation. However, some of you may think that after you're born again, God expects you to pray and study; and if you don't do these things, God won't bless you. After you are born again, it doesn't change! Colossians 2:6 says, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him." When we are born again, we come to Jesus just as we are. In fact, if a person has a lot of sin, it's even more reason to come to Jesus. When it comes to being healed, it's a different story with most Christians. They think if you haven't read your Bible today or you had a fight on the way to church, it will keep you from being healed. That's a double standard. That's saying that the way you approach God after you're born again is different. Your actions may not please God today, but you can be healed or delivered in spite of it. "

Andrew Wommack