GOD’S GRACE. Controversial?
Who’d have ever thought that God’s grace could be controversial? Yet, it seems to be a controversial topic among preachers and teachers today. What a strange world we live in (oh, the world has always been strange).
In Paul’s day, the religious Jewish folk said he was “blaspheming the Law of Moses and the temple” because he was not telling Gentiles (non-Jews) to become circumcised or that they had to follow the Jewish laws. Today, there are those who say that persons who preach grace want to throw out the Old Testament….similar? [If you read the Book of Acts in the Bible, you’ll see this everywhere Paul went.]
The Old Testament was the only “Scripture” available to the first Apostles. Paul, as a teacher and lawyer, used it to prove that Jesus was the Messiah to the Jews. Paul proved Jesus was Messiah to the Gentiles by signs and wonders. The Old Testament scriptures would have had no meaning to non-Jews. Paul used whatever he could to show the non-Jews that God loved them; however, they wouldn’t be able to connect the dots using a scripture that had no relevance for them.
As Christian believers in this time, we have the wealth of the Old Testament to peruse as we see Jesus Christ throughout. We can see God’s plan of redemption beginning in Genesis and follow it all the way through. We can see God’s character and how patient he was to the Jewish people and how He loved them. We see his plan to return mankind to a place where they are one with Him again. We see how blessed we are that we have a new contract (covenant/testament) and that, as believers, we have been set free from the law of sin and death. {Romans 2:8}
When Jesus walked the planet among us, he was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub (Satan). [Luke 11:15]
When Jesus was here, there were no Christians. He came to the Jews to explain to them who he was and to show them that they were not able to keep the Mosaic Law perfectly enough to ensure salvation. He showed them how impossible it is to keep the Law so that they would know that they needed a Savior (Him). Most of them eventually did not believe and many of them called for his crucifixion.
He had a dual message: 1) that no one can keep the Law well enough to be saved and, therefore, God sent His Messiah to save them; and 2) to prophecy about the New Covenant (or agreement, contract or Testament) and what would happen after He died, took our punishment, and rose again to a new life…ushering in that New Covenant.
I knew the grace of God when Jesus Christ became my Lord and Savior. John 3:16-18 says
16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Just believe? Isn’t that grace? This was God’s plan from the beginning. No hoops to jump through, no Law to obey, just receiving His gift of mercy and grace.
So…we just believe and go on living however we feel like? Well, we could, but there is another component…the Holy Spirit who comes and lives in us when we turn ourselves over to Jesus Christ, believing He has done it all. The Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus in us. Our lives begin to change as the Spirit begins changing our desires to match up with God’s desires. We cannot remain the same as we were…we are alive for the first time, we KNOW love for the first time and we respond to that love. [John 14:17; 16:5-15]
Many of those who are so uptight about grace forget the Holy Spirit’s empowerment and our new ability to respond.
When you fall in love with someone, even on an earthly level, you want to please them, you want to learn all about them, and you change your life for them. Think about how it would be if that person’s spirit was in you helping you to understand them, showing you how to love them and, more than that, showing you that they love you more than you could even absorb. That’s what grace is like…that’s what grace is.
Grace is Jesus. Grace is Love.
juliesramblings 