Why Grace?
Pete recalls that fifteen years ago he was invited to speak at a Christian camp in Sacramento. The theme of his message was the remarkable grace of God. After the message, Pete conducted an anointing celebration where each man who dedicated himself to follow Christ was anointed “Man of God.” A church-goer approached him afterward. He said, your message about remarkable grace is the message I’ve been waiting to hear all my life. Before I heard your message about God’s remarkable grace, I thought that I was unworthy of salvation because my own works were not worthy of God’s righteous standard.”
The purpose of ministry is to create an environment where the Holy Spirit can come help himself to our lives.
There are two types of grace in the Bible. The first type is in Ephesians 2:8, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. This type of grace is the face love wears when it meets imperfection. Grace is God’s gracious gift given to the one who didn’t deserve to receive it by the one who didn’t need to give it.
Grace is a gift offered by God. To accept His grace, we must first humble ourselves under the mighty Hand of God. We have to realize that we cannot make it on our own. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Grace is all of thee and none of me.
The other type of grace is “favor of God and man.” This type of grace is found in the verse that says, “the child Jesus grew in wisdom, and stature, and favour (grace) with God and man.
The concept of grace is foreign to every worldly religion. Grace is rooted and grounded in the cross of Christ. At the cross, Jesus paid the price for our sins. He exchanged his perfect innocent life for our sinful guilty life that was deserving of death. For he who was without sin became the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.
After having received God’s gracious gift of salvation, his Holy Spirit of Christ in us the hope of glory, we have received a new nature. This new spiritual nature of Holy Spirit is righteous in God’s sight. When God sees us he sees the righteousness of Christ in us. He does not judge us according to our sinful nature of the flesh.
Should we who were saved from sin, continue any longer therein? God forbid. How can you who were delivered from your sinful nature continue in sin? As men of God our challenge is to walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. This is the theme of Romans 8.
The battle rages between the flesh and the spirit. Paul said in Romans 7, who shall deliver me from this dead body?
Without grace, the gift of God, there is no peace. Peace is one of the fruit of the spirit. We still have the fruit of the spirit because of God’s gracious gift of His Holy Spirit. Paul began his epistles with the greeting, “Grace and Peace from God or Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The world says “God helps those who help themselves.” However, the God says, “the arm of flesh will fail you, Ye dare not trust your own.” God helps those whose strength is in the Lord.
The second essential of receiving God’s gift of grace is his assurance that “I accept you as you are.” As the song says, “Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. And that thou bidst me come to thee….O lamb of God I come, I come.
When we accept God’s offer of grace, we receive the righteousness of Christ. God accepts us as we are. He doesn’t see us as we are in the flesh but as we will be. He sees us in the righteousness of his grace.
Because of his grace, blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the way of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of waters. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Living in God’s peace produces the fruit of the spirit. Peace is the result of reconciliation. Reconciliation means to bring together that which has been separated. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus. Bearing fruit results when Jesus Christ is the vine and we are the branches.
Because of God’s loving grace, we’re valuable. Our value is not in our own performance. What’s valuable? Our value is in our fitness for his purpose. Our value is the payment his only begotten son Jesus Christ paid with his precious priceless blood. Value is determined by the price that was paid. Our value to God is priceless.
Our value is in that he made us fit for his purpose…. that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. What is the purpose for his gracious gift? We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he’s foreordained that we should walk in it. This is the purpose for which God paid the ultimate price…..that we should be to the praise of the glory of His grace.
Because of his loving grace we are his and he is ours. A man of God is God’s man. This is the genitive of possession. Christianity is not who we are but WHOSE we are. Because fo His grace, make me a captive Lord and then I shall be free…. I sink in life’s alarms if by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms and free shall be my stand.
That we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael