The Grace Haters Disgrace.
The real disgrace of Grace haters is their failure to fully embrace the fullness of God's Grace.
It is a great disgrace not to fully embrace the fullness of God's grace because you will continually strive in a race to be something you are not, nor indeed can be.
Grace haters believe that God is calling saints and sinners to live better lives, thus their striving to become something that no amount of striving can attain. God is not calling people to strive for life...God is calling saint and sinner alike to...LIFE...His LIFE.
God wouldn`t ask us to do anything we could not do and expect us to do it. Christ said for us to strive to enter in at narrow gate in Luke 13:24, in other words make every effort.
ReplyDeletePaul preached same message as Christ in 1 Cor.9:24,25 when he said
24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
But modern day grace teachers teach an effortless Christianity. They say when we preach like Christ and Paul preached you put people under bondage. Some even say that if you preach some of things that Christ preached it will kill people spiritually even though Christ said that the words that He spoke they are spirit and they are life. They say they were just for pre-cross people.
One grace preacher who speaks about an effortless good news gospel says that if you are struggling with depression your not meditating on Word of God day and night. But if we are required to meditate on Word day and night that`s going to take effort.
So it is not grace gospel that we hate but the false grace message that modern day grace preachers proclaim. There is no need to rewrite the Bible in name of grace.
Hubert, whether you know it or not...in your striving to maintain your relationship with God you are insinuating that what Jesus did on the cross to redeem man was not enough because you are making the maintaining of your relationship about God dependent on your doing. You are calling God a liar by allowing your actions to declare to the community of Humanity that their own efforts and ability to be a "good Christian".
ReplyDeleteYou cannot know God and continue to strive...Cease striving and know that He is God." Psalm 46:10 (NASB)
The Hebrew word that is translated "Cease striving" or "Be still" is 'Raphah' it means: to sink down, to sink, drop, to relax, withdraw, idle, to let drop, abandon, refrain, forsake, to let go, to refrain, let alone, to be quiet, to show oneself slack
So Hubert man...chill out, it's not about your doing nor is it about you. Relax in His rest, give yourself some slack, let go, stop struggling, cease striving, be still, abandon yourself to God... lighten up and get to know Him...it is time for you to stop living in the old covenant and live in the Jesus covenant.
You need to trust God’s action in you and operate by God’s Spirit in you, you need to live and breath God. Your obsession with self in spiritual matters is Jesus defying. Focusing on yourself in your doing is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self and what they think more than the reality of knowing God. You are ignoring God, what He has don and what He is doing. Do you think God is pleased with your ignorance of Him, check out Romans 8: 5-8 to see if He is or not.
If we would swallow your pride and take a good look at yourselves, you would no doubt realize that on most days, we lie to the world and ourself about the freedom that is found in Jesus Christ and the transformational power of His grace.
Why do you constantly strive to “be a better Christian.” Why do you choose to identify with your past mistakes and your present failures over and and over again. You act on our your feelings feelings rather than God’s promises and truth. You struggle to keep a Christian-checklist of Do and Don’t rules to live up to. You test God by making sacrifices in order to get closer to Him and find His favour.
DeleteYour struggling is no more than vain “religiosity” because it’s not by your works or good deeds that will fit you to represent Christ in the earth. And it’s not by how you follow the rules, that makes you special or chosen to be in the Lord's favour. No amount of “religiosity” can bring you into closer to God because Jesus cannot love you any more than He loves the sinner, who don't strive to gain His favour.
But you are missing the gospel entirely, my friend! You have been deluded into thinking that it’s about what you can do for God, that makes you holier and more intimate with Jesus. But that’s deception's lie.
You have diminished the gospel to a to-do list, a Christian score card you are constantly striving to to attain 100% on. To the world, you are saying that being a christian is about doing the do's and not doing the don'ts of a man-made standard.
Hubert my friend, the gospel is not about your acts or words or deeds or about a bunch of RULES! God gave us the Mosaic Law to show us our in ability to measure up to its standards
And show us our desperate need of a Mediator our Saviour. He knew we couldn’t keep them and that would fail miserably at trying. Adam and Eve couldn’t even keep one simple rule, “Don’t eat from the tree of life!” But because of our innate arrogance and pride, we keep striving to keep them! So God piles on more…. 10 rules in Exodus [The ten commandments] and 200 in Leviticus, to name a FEW! Yet He is saying; “My child, why can't you get it, let the mirror of the law show you it can't be done?” Hubert stop trying.
In Jesus, God personally took on the human nature, entered the mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.” (Romans 8: 3-5)
Hubert it is time you stop striving and take rest in the victory of the cross...for indeed the cross was a victory, you need to stop acting like it was a partial victory!
And remember...God loves you in-spite of your stubbornness...because of His Grace.
Remember Jesus did not teach under the New Covenant, He taught under the Old Covenant, therefore striving to keep the law was in then, but He initiated a NEW WAY by His death and resurrection...you need to understanding to distinguish between the two and realize you are living in the old...Walk in the freedom that Jesus has provided for you because it is done the great transaction is DONE, that means STRIVING in and of ourselves is finished!
ReplyDeletePart 1.
ReplyDeleteThe question is not are we striving to maintain our relationship but what kind of a relationship do we have?
Is it a warm one? Is it a cold one? Or is it lukewarm? Jesus said He would rather for us to be hot or cold. If it is a lukewarm relationship then He is going to spew us out of His mouth. (Rev.3:15-16)
Is it a love relationship? Christ warns us in Rev. 2:4-5
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Repenting to get right with God is something the false grace teachers frown upon.
There is only one way we can have a love relationship with God is to keep His commandments. Jesus said in John 14:15 if ye love me keep my commandments. This is another thing that false grace teachers frown upon because you would have to do something and there is no do`s and don`ts in the grace message. God`s grace goes hand in hand with our obedience.
Is it slipping or are we neglecting it. Again we have a warning in Heb. 2:1-3
1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
2 For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward;
3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
Part2:
ReplyDeleteTo have a relationship we need to communicate and spend time with that individual. This takes time and effort. So the true grace message is not an effortless grace message that many are presenting today. Ask the apostle Paul if it is an effortless grace message.
1 Corinthians 15:58
King James Version (KJV)
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour(effort) is not in vain in the Lord.
Paul says in Heb. 10:
34 For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
Do you want to receive the promise? Then believe what Paul says not some grace teacher that tells you there is no nothing you have to do. Paul was very clear that you would receive the promise after, not before you do the will of God. Another do.
Lets see if Paul preached that there is nothing for us to do.
Romans 7:18-25
King James Version (KJV)
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Long after Christ was gone Paul said that with his mind he served the law of God.
So I`ll believe what apostle Paul preached rather than some smooth talking, tickle your ear modern day grace preacher who would accuse Paul of preaching legalism.
Yes by all means accept the grace message and thank God for it but not everything some grace teacher says. Especially those who try to read something into Scripture that`s not there. And if you don`t believe this is happening then I can give you quotes.
You cannot know God and continue to strive...Cease striving and know that He is God." Psalm 46:10 (NASB)
ReplyDeleteThe Hebrew word that is translated "Cease striving" or "Be still" is 'Raphah' it means: to sink down, to sink, drop, to relax, withdraw, idle, to let drop, abandon, refrain, forsake, to let go, to refrain, let alone, to be quiet, to show oneself slack
So Hubert man...chill out, it's not about your doing nor is it about you. Relax in His rest, give yourself some slack, let go, stop struggling, cease striving, be still, abandon yourself to God... lighten up and get to know Him...it is time for you to stop living in the old covenant and live in the Jesus covenant.