~ Wonderful Links Below ... Filled with Grace ~
A Holy Experience
Grace Walk Ministries
Eddie Snipes
Desiring God
Grace Roots
Sharing God's Grace
God's Grace Devotionals
Embrace Grace-
unplanned pregnancy
Recovering Grace
Grace Talks
She Reads Truth
Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable…. The cliché definition of grace is “unconditional love.” It is a true cliché, for it is a good description of the thing. Let’s go a little further, though. Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything and only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights and measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called “gifts” (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualifications the receiver may personally hold…. Grace is one-way love.Grace doesn’t make demands. It just gives. And from our vantage point, it always gives to the wrong person. We see this over and over again in the Gospels: Jesus is always giving to the wrong people—prostitutes, tax collectors, half-breeds. The most extravagant sinners of Jesus’s day receive his most compassionate welcome. Grace is a divine vulgarity that stands caution on its head. It refuses to
It is one-way love.
(2 Peter 3:18 KJV) But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Grace is an undeserved free
gift, undeserved favor, and undeserved love.
All of the other religions of the world offer salvation by works.
They say if
you become good enough you can work your way to God, you must go through
procedures and sufferings and rituals to get to God. Some religions say that you
can become a god, this appeals to man's pride. Just as when pride entered into
Satan and he said, "I will be like the Most High God", and he became
God's enemy.
The new age religions all pickup on this theme, that you can become
a god.
It is not new; even in the Garden of Eden Satan tempted Eve by telling
her if she ate the fruit that she would become like God.
Only through Jesus Christ we are offered grace, a free gift. This is contrary
to human nature, which in pride says I can do it myself. Our attitude is,
"my life is my own and I will do with it as I please." Jesus says yes
I gave you life and I gave you power to choose, it is your choice. So we choose love
and give our life to Jesus and rest in Him, or we choose pride becoming God's
enemy, trying to work and climb up to heaven another way besides through Jesus. (John
14:6 NKJV) Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through Me.
The deeper I get into knowing and experiencing God one thing becomes more and
more clear.
That is, all that I am, all that I ever have been, and all that I
ever will be is totally one hundred percent a result of God's awesome grace.
Every failure I experience causes me to humbly become more dependent upon God's
grace, causing me to decrease and Jesus to increase in my life. All and every
success I have is not mine but rather a result of God's grace at work in me.
Spiritual success has nothing to do with me or the things that I do or don't do;
except for the choice to both accept and live in grace, or reject the free gift
by rejecting God and His Love. I can't add anything to grace and I can't take
anything away from it.
(Ephesians 2:1-10 NKJV) And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses
and sins, {2} in which you once walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the
sons of disobedience, {3} among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the
lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and
were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. {4} But God, who is rich
in mercy (compassion), because of His great love with which He loved us, {5}
even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by
grace you have been saved), {6} and raised us up together, and made us sit
together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, {7} that in the ages to come He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus. {8} For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves; it is the gift of God, {9} not of works, lest anyone should boast.
{10} For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The works that we do for God are the works that He has prepared in advance
that we should walk in them; they are not a result of our efforts. They are
God's works that we move in being guided by His Holy Spirit of Love. This is
your destiny on earth.
If you are thinking that, "I am unworthy to do works for God", then
you are the perfect candidate, and you are the one He is calling. You are the
one God desires to give grace to. The first step toward accepting God's grace is
to understand that you don't deserve it. (Proverbs 18:12 NIV) Before his
downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor. People
that try to work their way toward God are an insult to Him and His grace; they
are working in pride, which is the opposite of Love. (1 Peter 5:5-7 NIV)…"God
opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." {6} Humble yourselves,
therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. {7}
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. God does not love you
because you are good, God loves you because He is good.
(Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV) For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, {9} not of works, lest anyone
should boast. Everything about our relationship with God depends upon us
trusting Him in faith, by resting in His grace. We are to come to Him as a
little child saying, "Daddy pick me up", and He does, Then He caries
us. (Isaiah 46:4 NIV) Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he
who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you
and I will rescue you.
Sometimes our tendency is to do things on our own to get out of His arms and
run. We want to do the work instead of letting God do it. Then the Lord will
chastise us and cause situations that are too big for us to handle alone, which
sends us running back into His arms where once again we rest in His grace,
trusting Him to rescue us. (Isaiah 30:15 NKJV) For thus says the Lord GOD,
the Holy One of Israel: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; In
quietness and confidence shall be your strength."
What we need to know and understand about God is that He has created the
world and you so that He can have compassion and grace on the world and you. God
is love and He is full of compassion, this is who He is and what He longs to do.
Thus He has allowed a world of suffering and bondage so that He can pour out His
compassion and heal and rescue us, He loves to do it, and He needs to do it. (Isaiah
30:18 NLT) But the LORD still waits for you to come to him so he can show you
his love and compassion. For the LORD is a faithful God. Blessed are those who
wait for him to help them. With out suffering and bondage there would be no
one to rescue, no one to receive God's compassion. (Romans 11:32 NIV) For God
has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy (compassion) on
them all.
God has set up the world and set us up as an opportunity of His grace (Romans
5:20-21 NIV) The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where
sin increased, grace increased all the more, {21} so that, just as sin reigned
in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. So God set up our failure so that He could
demonstrate His love for us. (1 John 4:9-10 NIV) This is how God showed his
love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live
through him. {10} This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. The scene of the cross
was the ultimate demonstration of love. God was willing to suffer in agony and
pain to demonstrate the love that He has for you and me. Every time we sin we
must remember the cross and thank God for His grace and compassion for us
because that is where each sin was paid for, even the ones that we commit today.
After we accept the free gift of grace given to us through Jesus paying the
price of our salvation we then begin a new life in Christ. When we accept Jesus
into our heart He sends the Holy Spirit into us to begin our spiritual life in
Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NIV) Now it is God who makes both us and you
stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, {22} set his seal of ownership on us, and
put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. The
Holy Spirit is given to us to be with us forever, the Holy Spirit is God in us. (John
14:16-17 NKJV) "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another
Helper, that He may abide with you forever; {17} "the Spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you
know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
The Holy Spirit teaches us truth from God, and directs us toward obeying God.
Obedience to God is summed up by being in Love, Loving God and Loving people
through the Spirit of Love. (1 Peter 1:22 NKJV) Since you have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren,
love one another fervently with a pure heart. It is the work of the Holy
Spirit that is transforming us and changing our will and our desires to walk in
love and obedience to God. (Philippians 2:13 NLT) For God is working in you,
giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him. We
can not walk in obedience by our own efforts, it is the work of the Holy Spirit
in us that gives us the ability and the desire to love and obey.
What God requires of us is that we abide in Him. (John 15:4-5 NIV) Remain
in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must
remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. {5}
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him,
he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. Without God we
can do nothing, thus the fruits of being a Christian are a result of God's work
of grace in our lives, not by our efforts. What we are required to do is abide
in Christ as a branch in a tree. The only work that a branch does is remain in
the tree, then life giving sap and nutrients come up through the tree giving it
life and producing fruit. This represents the work of the Holy Spirit of Love,
flowing from God and through us, producing fruits in our life. (Galatians
5:22-23 NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, {23} gentleness and self-control. Against such
things there is no law.
Love is the first fruit of the Spirit; all of the other fruits are a result
of love. When you have love you have all of the other fruits also. When people
see the fruits of love in your life and they feel and experience the love of God
coming through you then they also want to taste and see that God is good, this
is how people are drawn into the kingdom.
(1 John 5:2-4 NKJV) By this we know that we love the children of God, when
we love God and keep His commandments. {3} For this is the love of God, that we
keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
There is a point at which our knowledge of God and His love reaches critical
mass and we breakthrough into the rest dimension, the realm of trust and faith
that comes from love. No longer do we struggle to obey God's commandments, it is
easy, and we enjoy them because there are only two, love God and love your
neighbor; when we keep these two all the others are kept also.
Trying to Love by our own efforts is impossible without the help of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Love because it is God's Spirit; it is
the presence of God in our life. (Exodus 33:14 NKJV) And He said, "My
Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." All that we are
required to do is abide in God, (Hebrews 4:10 NKJV) For he who has entered
His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
God's grace does not depend on our efforts or works it totally depends upon
God. (Romans 9:15-16 NIV) For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on
whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
{16} It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's
mercy. If we are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us then God
does the work of changing our heart to love Him and love others, so that we can
be obedient to His Word. (2 Thessalonians 3:5 NKJV) Now may the Lord direct
your hearts into the love of God and into the patience (endurance) of Christ.
(Deuteronomy 30:6 NKJV) "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart
and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart
and with all your soul, that you may live.
We must always understand that our failures and weakness are no match for
God's grace and love that He has for us. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV) But he
said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my
weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. {10} That is why, for
Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in
persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Our
works always end in failure and suffering, demonstrating our weakness, then we
come to the end of our self and call out to our Father of Compassion. Then God
gives us His strength and ability to overcome, causing us to love Him and trust
Him more and more. (Galatians 3:11 KJV) But that no man is justified by the
law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
In rescuing us God is glorified, if it was by our efforts we could claim the
glory.
Many of the New Testament epistles begin and end with a salutation such as
this: Grace, compassion, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ
our Lord be upon you, and abound in you, and be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. This should be our prayer for ourselves
and for those we love. Probably the best thing we can ask God for is His grace
and compassion in us and upon us. We can ask God for every need, including more
of His love in our heart, a desire to serve Him, a desire to read His word, a
desire to know Him in an intimate way.
Ask God to experience His presence in a super natural way, and that His Love
will flow through your heart and reach out to touch others. If you are willing
to allow God to answer these prayers, and allow the Holy Spirit to change you
from the inside, He will, He is anxious to answer such prayers from His
children. (Hebrews 4:15-16 NIV) For we do not have a high priest who is
unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. {16} Let us then approach the
throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy (compassion) and
find grace to help us in our time of need.
Shared from: Seek God - Grace
Always remember that the
voice of God is the sound of Love
TRUTH NUGGETS TAKE FROM THE BOOK
by Tony Cooke
* Saving Grace *
* Sanctifying Grace *
* Strengthening Grace *
* Sharing Grace *
* Serving Grace *
Grace
is never a cop-out; rather, it is a catalyst that powerfully enables us
to be and to do all that God has called us to become and accomplish.
Not
only does this book explain what grace provides, but it also discusses
what Grace produces. As you learn to partake freely and fully of God's
grace, you will be able to say with the Apostle Paul, "By the grace of
God I am what I am." (1 Corinthians 15:10).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are appreciated, will respond in-between the moments....