Be Strong In Grace

The cross is the foundation for breakthroughs and genuine inside-out transformation! Many people are unable to experience lasting breakthroughs from fears, addictions, and bondages because they don’t yet understand grace. You can evaluate how well you understand what Jesus accomplished at the cross for you by looking at how free you are in Christ today. Are you constantly struggling with thoughts of fear, doubt, guilt, and condemnation? Are you always entangled in a sinful habit or addiction?

If that is you, you need to study, meditate on, and feed on grace. Don’t back away from grace; be strong in the grace of God extended to you. Be strong in understanding that your sins are forgiven. Be strong in the knowledge that you are justified by faith. You are righteous only because of Jesus, your works have nothing to do with how God sees you.

When you are strong in grace, you will produce a godly, holy, and glorious life! We are not talking about superficial outward changes. We are talking about changes that happen in the deepest parts of the heart, motivations, and thoughts. So, let yourself be washed in the blood and you’ll be touched by His grace.

Give People The Truth.

One reason so many people fall away from the Lord is because of wrong theology. When their mistaken belief system doesn’t pan out, they throw everything out: God, His Word, the work of the cross. We must rescue them with the truth, show them that God didn’t, and doesn’t, fail. Their faulty theology is the root cause of their suffering walk. There are believers who still cannot believe that the work of Jesus is complete and finished. They are trying to complete a completed work, finish a finished work and defeat a defeated devil. They are always working and trying to produce healing, success and victory. God wants us to stop trying and start trusting in His love for us. He wants us to stop working and struggling, and start resting and believing in His grace toward us.

The only “work” left for us to do today is to enter His rest. We rest inwardly and believe that the work is done, and trust God. Hebrews says, “if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…be diligent to enter that rest”. Let’s preach that and bring hope to those around us.

Don’t Doubt God’s Protection.

Do we have to do anything to qualify for God’s protection? So many people make it sound like God blesses and protects you only if you are able to love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Unfortunately, this robs you of the faith to believe God for divine protection over yourself and your loved ones. Anything that is dependent on our efforts is on a shaky foundation, because no matter how “good” a Christian we think we are, our love for the Lord will fail. That is why God sent Jesus. He knew that man would never be able to keep the commandments. Scripture says that God SO loved the world that He sent His only Son to save and rescue us. Jesus Himself fulfilled all the requirements of the law. Even when our love for Him fails, He still delivers us from evil! The emphasis of the new covenant is God’s love for you, not your love for God.

Thanks!

God will never forgive us any more than we’ve already been forgiven. He doesn’t have to, because He forgave us all our sins the first time! To understand the total forgiveness of sins, we have to understand the value of the person Who sacrificed Himself on the cross for us. Because Jesus didn’t have sin, He could pay for all the sins of every man. When Jesus died at Calvary, He took all of humanity’s sins with one sacrifice of Himself. He took the judgment, punishment, and condemnation for all sins upon Himself. He is an overpayment for all our sins.

Now, does that mean that everyone is automatically forgiven? Of course not! While everyone’s sin is paid for, every individual needs to make a personal decision to receive the forgiveness of all their sins by receiving Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. Jesus is the only way to salvation. There is no other way except through Jesus and His shed blood. To be saved, you have to confess that Jesus is your Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Therefore, anyone who tells you that everyone’s sin is automatically forgiven and that you don’t need to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior in order to be saved is wrong. There is no salvation without Jesus.

There is no forgiveness without the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no assurance that all our sins have been forgiven without the resurrection of Jesus. Our belief in Jesus means that there is forgiveness and that our salvation is secure. This is our reality. Today, on this Thanksgiving, enjoy His presence, His righteousness, and His help.

How God Blesses You.

LAW is deserved favor. When you obey the commandments perfectly, you will be blessed.

GRACE is undeserved favor. Jesus obeyed God perfectly, and you will be blessed by believing in Him.

The devil is well aware that the moment you learn to receive God’s grace, your life will start to change. He works hard to prevent you from understanding grace and how you receive your righteousness. He uses controversy around healing, prosperity, and grace to keep believers from being victorious over sickness, poverty, and sin.

We have to base what we believe on the Scriptures and test everything against it. If you want to know the truth about God’s grace, study His Word yourself and see what it has to say about grace! There is only one gospel in the Bible. When you believe the gospel of Jesus, which is based entirely on His grace, it leads to blessings, success, healing, restoration, protection, financial breakthroughs, security, peace, wholeness, and much more!

God blesses you because He is good. It is based on His faithfulness and goodness toward you. It is not based on your performance, but on His undeserved favor. If it were based on how good you are, then it would no longer be grace. It would be deserved favor.

How do you see God, as a Judge or loving Father? God is your loving Father in heaven who loves you and has nothing but good gifts for you. He sent His Son to die for you so that you can enjoy every one of these good gifts. Today, receive!

Positioned With Christ.

We tend to think that spiritual growth is about the information, knowledge and works we should attain when in reality it is about acknowledging our need for God. Real spiritual growth is marked by a growing realization of how desperate we are for God’s grace.

Isn’t it awesome to know that God does not measure and judge you based on your performance? He looks at Jesus, and as Jesus is, that is how He sees you. His Word declares that “as He is, so are we in this world.” Notice that it does not say that “as Jesus was.” That would be amazing enough because during Jesus’ ministry on earth, healing, blessings and abundance followed Him everywhere He went. But that’s not what the Word says. What it says is, “as Jesus is”. In other words, as He is right now, so are we in this world!

So where is Jesus today?

Right now, He is seated at the Father’s right hand, “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.” Think about that. If He is above all that, then, so are you! You are above every principality and power, above every disease and physical condition, above every kind of fear, depression and addiction.

Remember your position with God, and you’ll be over every negative situation in your life!

Come Home.

You’ve read about the prodigal son and you probably know about how the Father responded to his crazy lifestyle. ​

What would you say if your son, ​after he had demanded his large inheritance, came crawling home one day after wasting ​it all? ​

In our story, the father never talked to his son about what he lost or wasted. The son definitely lost everything, and it would have been a lot! The father focused on his son being home and that he had the opportunity to show him how much he loved him. He even restored what the son had lost! Like the father in the parable, it is your heavenly Father’s desire to embrace you and show you how much you are loved. God doesn’t see loss or waste like we do. He sees it as an opportunity to restore to you what you lost. Even if you feel far away from ​God, or ​if ​you feel that you have disappointed Him, don’t ​worry. The truth is that the moment you come to Him, He immediately restores you.​ You never lose your position with God…He loves you!

 

Avoiding the Iceberg

Did you hear about the guy with the toothache on the Titanic? Or the couple who were arguing about their relationship in their cabin? Or the grieving widow and her children? Or the guy who was drunk and depressed about his failing company?

Until a week ago I didn’t know these stories about the Titanic, either. What struck me was that none of these people, as they made their way across the Atlantic Ocean in 1912 on the Titanic, knew that they were going to die soon. I’m sure, at the time, that these problems were real and painful, but they weren’t the biggest problem they had.

Every one of us has felt needs that we think about and deal with on a daily basis. We often think, if only this issue or that issue didn’t exist, we’d be okay. But like the people on the Titanic, with very real and very painful issues, our very real and very painful issues are only symptoms of our biggest problem. We live in a society where we feel like we are in control and we need to do things on our own. God is usually left out of our daily picture, that is, until the iceberg is right in front of us.

We need rescue from ourselves. And when we come to God with empty hands that He meets us and gives to us what we need most. That’s why Jesus went to the cross. That’s the Good News. That’s the Gospel.

“Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters…” (Psalm 144:7)

If you have accepted Jesus into your life, your sins and lawless deeds are forgiven. You are cleansed for eternity. Thank Jesus today for His death on the cross, and for His victory over sin. Walk, run, leap into 2018 with a whole new attitude. Depend on God and never be afraid to come to Him and remember that you are completely loved, blessed and anointed by God to do great things. I hope you are all ready for the ride! God will steer you away from the icebergs in your life and bring you to still, calm waters.

Do We Walk The Walk?

Change is coming to the church. Have you noticed it yet? I sure do. I’m starting to see a new reformation happen and I’m so excited. It’s a reconnect to grace and the gospel, which is something that I believe has been lost over time.  Let me explain this a bit, and I want pastors and those of you that teach to pay attention.

For years the traditional Christian life was explained like this: Here’s Jesus, follow Him, then you’ll do your best to love Him, then you’ll have peace after all of your work is done.

Sound familiar? I taught this. You’ve probably taught this. Sounds logical, but it’s backwards. The book of John gives us the proper walk of a believer.

It is finished: John 19:30 

Now you’ll have peace: John 20:19 

Do you love me now? John 21:15

Now you can follow me. John 21:22

We need to refocus, both for ourselves and for those that are learning from us. We need to show people the true Christian life that Christ intended. Let’s tell them their sins are forgiven, that they are righteous, that they already possess peace. They need to know that they are already justified by faith. We need them to seek rest, not to war with God. That’s what God’s love and grace is all about.

There is no way around it, God’s grace, or one-way love, is deeply offensive. It’s actually kinda frightening. So much so that if you’re not offended by grace you probably haven’t encountered the real thing. The apostle Paul felt that if he didn’t offend anyone with the freedom of the gospel that they didn’t understand his message. I love that!

Grace will turn the world upside down. It shatters our self-righteousness and introduces freedom beyond imagination. There is something scary though, and it begs addressing. Pastors, teachers, believers…now that you don’t have to prove anything to anyone, now that your self-regard and self-respect have been secured, now that you know God loves you, that your future in heaven is secured, that your actions don’t count and you have been fully justified in the sight of God…what do you want to do in your life? You can’t change the world, but what will happen when God’s gospel is revealed properly?

What are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything? I’m serious. Think about it. Don’t let the inner voices of responsibility kick in and think this freedom is irresponsible or dangerous. My guess is that once you realize you don’t have to do anything for God that will find you want to do everything for Him.

How’s My Performance?

Do we realize how much satan condemns us each and every day? Do we even understand how much Jesus himself was put under the same condemnation?

Mat 4:2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterwards hungry.
Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If You are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

This scripture really made me think about how much the enemy makes me question my position with God. We all know that satan’s goal is to condemn us into a life of defeat and lack of faith. Even the pharisees had a ministry of condemnation. The law’s key point was to condemn and point out flaws. In this scripture we see that right after Jesus was baptized by John and He was in the wilderness that satan had the guts to try to make Him question who He was! What is satan thinking? He knows that Jesus is the Son of God. He knows that Jesus was at Genesis. He knows that Jesus is the savior of the world. What is satan trying to do here?

He’s trying to get Jesus to PERFORM to show who He was! Sound familiar? Satan condemns us each and every day for our performance. Satan was trying to put Jesus back under the law! And satan tried to do it three times!! Jesus said that He didn’t need to perform to show satan who He was….and neither do we. We don’t need to worry about when we sin or fall short that we have lost our position with God. When we accept Jesus we become sons and daughters, nothing can take that away from us.

Let’s look at this a little further. The next time that satan calls Jesus out to perform is at the cross!

Mat 27:40 and saying, You destroying the temple and building it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.
Mat 27:41 And in the same way also the chief priests mocked, with the scribes and elders, saying,
Mat 27:42 He saved others, but he cannot save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

Do you see it now? They were condemning Jesus, trying to make him doubt who He was. They wanted Him to perform. It’s no different today with you and me. Anytime someone puts you under the law….expects you to perform to earn favor with man or God…then that person is not after your best interests…they are expecting you to perform to show your value to them. It’s evil.

Don’t fall into this trap. Know who you are, who is in you, and who your Father is.
You don’t have to ever doubt your position with God….Jesus secured that at the cross.