Grace
One of the most amazing truths of the Bible is that those who are saved, are saved by grace alone. Salvation is based on a legal transaction between God and man, and the Son of Man, Jesus, paid the price for all of His brothers and sisters willing to trust in His payment, and follow Him into life. God's grace saved us, not our ability to follow God's law.
The enemy hates this fact, and if given an opportunity, He will distort it in order to lead us away from God again. We want to guard against taking "God's grace in vain."God's grace shouldn't be a license for me to live a careless lives. It's just the opposite! God gives me grace to obey Him.
I think about my own sons. When they make a mistake, I want to correct them with the least intense means to get the result that will help them be good men. I try to show mercy, or grace. If I show grace to one of my sons, and he appreciates my mercy, he will at least try not to make the same mistake again. He might mess up in the same area again, but there is a difference between messing up, and assuming, since I was merciful once, that I am not serious about correcting Him!
But, if I show mercy to my son and He thinks to Himself, "its ok with dad if I ignore this rule, because he lets me get away with it," then he has taken my grace in vain. Whenever this happens, the correction is certainly coming his way. Because I love my kids, and it is my job to raise them to be good men, I don't let them get away with misunderstanding mercy.
God is the same way. God wants grace to produce a life that is drawing more and more near to Him, because where He is, there is freedom! God wants me to run to Him when I see how far out of line I am, not from Him. God wants to be my Father, and like any good dad, he doesn't want an outsider, like guilt, accusation, or condemnation disciplining me...He knows how to raise me as His son. He has chosen grace!
So He gives me a map to follow Him: faith in His grace produces a desire for moral living. Moral living produces a hunger for more knowledge of God, more knowledge of God produces a hunger for more self control, more self control produces a desire for patient endurance, and when the endurance kicks in, patiently allowing Jesus to form His life in my heart, godliness happens. Godliness leads to brotherly affection (caring for those close to me), and that leads to love for everyone else.
If this isn't happening in my life, the Bible says I am taking the grace of God in vain, I am getting pulled away from the path He has made for me. James said it more straightforwardly: faith without works (this progression of godliness) is dead faith. This tripped me up for years. Am I saved by doing good deeds, or by trusting that Jesus died for my sins?! What James was saying is this: works, or this progress of becoming more godly, is like a thermometer. When I look at the thermometer, it tells me how hot it is outside. The thermometer doesn't make it one degree hotter, but it is a measure of how hot it is. Works are a thermometer for my faith. If I am not doing any of the "stuff," my faith is cold...or dead. I want to keep asking God to help me appreciate His grace and walk into the good life He has for me, not to trample His grace and live like a slave to the life that enslaved me and never brought me satisfaction!
2 Peter 1:5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
The enemy hates this fact, and if given an opportunity, He will distort it in order to lead us away from God again. We want to guard against taking "God's grace in vain."God's grace shouldn't be a license for me to live a careless lives. It's just the opposite! God gives me grace to obey Him.
I think about my own sons. When they make a mistake, I want to correct them with the least intense means to get the result that will help them be good men. I try to show mercy, or grace. If I show grace to one of my sons, and he appreciates my mercy, he will at least try not to make the same mistake again. He might mess up in the same area again, but there is a difference between messing up, and assuming, since I was merciful once, that I am not serious about correcting Him!
But, if I show mercy to my son and He thinks to Himself, "its ok with dad if I ignore this rule, because he lets me get away with it," then he has taken my grace in vain. Whenever this happens, the correction is certainly coming his way. Because I love my kids, and it is my job to raise them to be good men, I don't let them get away with misunderstanding mercy.
God is the same way. God wants grace to produce a life that is drawing more and more near to Him, because where He is, there is freedom! God wants me to run to Him when I see how far out of line I am, not from Him. God wants to be my Father, and like any good dad, he doesn't want an outsider, like guilt, accusation, or condemnation disciplining me...He knows how to raise me as His son. He has chosen grace!
So He gives me a map to follow Him: faith in His grace produces a desire for moral living. Moral living produces a hunger for more knowledge of God, more knowledge of God produces a hunger for more self control, more self control produces a desire for patient endurance, and when the endurance kicks in, patiently allowing Jesus to form His life in my heart, godliness happens. Godliness leads to brotherly affection (caring for those close to me), and that leads to love for everyone else.
If this isn't happening in my life, the Bible says I am taking the grace of God in vain, I am getting pulled away from the path He has made for me. James said it more straightforwardly: faith without works (this progression of godliness) is dead faith. This tripped me up for years. Am I saved by doing good deeds, or by trusting that Jesus died for my sins?! What James was saying is this: works, or this progress of becoming more godly, is like a thermometer. When I look at the thermometer, it tells me how hot it is outside. The thermometer doesn't make it one degree hotter, but it is a measure of how hot it is. Works are a thermometer for my faith. If I am not doing any of the "stuff," my faith is cold...or dead. I want to keep asking God to help me appreciate His grace and walk into the good life He has for me, not to trample His grace and live like a slave to the life that enslaved me and never brought me satisfaction!
2 Peter 1:5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
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