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