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Grace: Get It – Galatians 1-2
Paul reminds the Galatians that his encounter of Grace came with his personal interaction with Jesus Christ – not simply living through the lives or wisdom of others. As Leslie Bitsas commented on June 9th: “I noticed in this passage that Paul was bold and confident in the gospel he was preaching because he had personal experience with the Lord. It wasn’t something he read in a self-help book, a how-to book, or some great advice he got from a friend. Paul made room for God and God met with him…

It’s been important to allow the Lord to build the foundation of my spiritual journey… I also believe that I should not always be seeking others for the truth, but seeking God. Paul spent three years alone in ministry with God.” When we connect with God by faith, we have the Grace of his wisdom and input for our daily struggles.

Grace: Give It – Galatians 3-4
Paul argues that Jesus is the offspring of righteousness promised to Abraham, and the fulfillment of Abraham’s blessing is the fact that Jesus’ salvation is offered to the Gentiles (all people). On July 4th, Ray Hooker reminded us of the zeal revival is supposed to give us for the lost: “I remember becoming a Christian in 1972 during the height of the Jesus movement. Those who had become believers in Jesus not only looked to share their new found life but also searched to meet anyone who also was a believer… The words in this verse, which almost seem like an after thought in this passage, were how people felt and acted… I am not saying that we do not have that passion today, yet sometimes we need to be reminded lest we become complacent.” Our lives are impacted by Grace so that we can give it away!

Grace: Live It – Galatians 5-6
If Grace isn’t working practically in our lives, do we really have it… and is there a way to see if we need to cling to God more? On July 18th, Kendrick Jr. reminded us of how we can tell we need to cling to God. “The fruit of the spirit is like a check-up at the doctor. 1. Are you loving others like Christ?, 2. Are you experiencing joy in your life?, 3. Is your heart in a place of peace?, 4. Do you exercise patience with others?… ‘The cross deals a constant blow to our pride and self-reliance.’ … In our failure, God creates a need for Him. Take a spiritual check-up today. Replace self-reliance with the fruit of God’s strength and Spirit working in you.” Thus Grace is part of our practical, day-to-day life!

I hope you have enjoyed the study of Galatians. Thanks for all who contributed to the blog, and thanks for all of you who read them. May his Grace and Peace refresh you day by day!

Since that time, God has used many things to “shake up” my life and test what I prioritize and value, what I am building my life upon, and what I am trusting in. I have found myself asking the questions, “What in my life counts for anything? What matters?” a lot over the past few weeks (especially during my time in Holland)! The struggle continues—I still am tempted to find my identity, and place my hope, in the knowledge of what I am going to do in the future, and in the way I perform in academics or in service to God. Day to day, I find that I boast in things other than the cross of Christ. Nevertheless, I, like Paul, want to put all of my hope and confidence in Jesus and renounce any other thing that I would seek to bring me glory or put my trust in (“the world,” Galatians 6:14).

I’ve been meditating on Ephesians 2 and have been struck by Paul’s encouragement to believers to “remember” what we were before God made us alive together with Christ, to remember that we were at one time separated from Christ (v 11, 12). We must position ourselves to gaze upon the cross of Christ each day (truly, every chance we get!), so that we do not forget who we were before God saved us. The cross exposes the world for what it really is (a false hope and security, under God’s wrath, sinking sand). Our response to such revelations should be one of humility: we boast solely in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, proclaiming that the work of Jesus is sufficient and the one glorious hope of our lives! My prayer is that God will give me (and you!) more grace to remember the one reality that defines who I am (and you are): “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). Now, we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10)!

I think Paul’s attitude is the key. Let’s examine his attitude toward suffering and persecution. He “rejoices” in his sufferings (Colossians 1:24). He “takes pleasure” in reproaches and persecutions for Christ’s sake (2 Corinthians 12:10). He “exults” in tribulations (Romans 5:3). He even considers suffering for Christ’s sake to be a gift from God (Philippians 1:29). I’m a bit convicted here: the lens through which Paul sees the world is radically different from mine!

In his book “Desiring God”, John Piper declares, “This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less satisfaction in self and the world.” He uses Paul’s shipwreck in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 as an example. When we “are burdened beyond measure, above strength”–when we “despair even of life”–we learn to “rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Yes!

So, if you’re wanting to truly walk by grace instead of the law, please pray this with me:

“Father, I know that your grace is sufficient for me. Like Paul has exhorted me, I want to live not under law, but under grace. Please help me! If suffering and persecution is what it takes to wean me from self-reliance, then please bring it. I know that my comfort only makes me complacent, so shake me out of that dangerous lukewarmness, and catapult me into a radical dependence on you, as I boast only in the cross of your Son. I want to know the joy of utter dependence on your sufficient grace. I trust you, and I know that I’ll be OK, because you, Sovereign Lord, are good. Amen.”

Of course, when we sow to our lower nature we can expect to reap from that as well. However, with it coming forth in another season, we may not connect it with our sowing! Paul says not to lose heart or grow weary or impatient. God never forgets–nor is He ever late. We can trust Him with our sowing–positively or negatively–because He is a loving and benevolent Father, who wants us conformed to the image of His Son.

In Luke 6:36-38, Jesus talks about this “boomerang effect” of sowing:
Give (sow) mercy–receive (reap) mercy.
Don’t judge (sow judging) and you will not be judged (reap judgment.)
Don’t condemn (sow condemnation) and you will not be condemned (reap condemnation.)
(Sow) Pardon and you will be pardoned (reap it.)
Look at the huge increase noted in verse 38: “Give and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return.”

I have certainly done my share of fleshly sowing! That is why I know the following is true: We can sow money because we want to look righteous and good. We can sow with resentment because we feel obligated. We can give out of a sense of “needing to be needed,” or to cause others to be dependent on us. Paul says not to be deceived, because we can be deceived!

As Jim Reklis said in his July 13th sermon, “The flesh operates by itself and seeks to feed and satisfy itself but the Spirit indwells us and produces holy desires which….produce fruit.”
Help! I need a Savior every moment of every day! And I have One!
I was reading Andrew Murray’s devotional this week. He said, “The one marvelous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh.”
“Christ in you,” is our liberating answer!

But it’s the next part that really excites me. “While we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” God is certainly Good, and he is long-suffering not wanting that any should perish. He loved us when we were rebels in arms, violating Him as often as we could. How much more, now that we have been made His Children? His greater concern is for us, we who have been redeemed into His favor. Certainly we should be a benefit to everyone we encounter (that mission is how God brought us into the fold in the first place), but especially to the Children of the Most High. What grace is this, that I should be able to serve such as these? (I, a hollow man with a heart of darkness, now made to overflow with living water and light that my heart cannot comprehend — what grace!) It’s like the weirdness of the sacrifice system of the Old Testament: that we should bring the first and best to God as a sacrifice. How odd! If anyone has need, it’s certainly not God! But because of His surpassing excellence, I bring him my very best first, and what is left I am free to use in the world to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. It’s the same now – because He is in my brothers and sisters, I am to bring my very best to you first and make sure that you are served and satisfied; and then I’m free to use what is left to be a blessing to the world. We should serve each other first not because we’re in Him, but because He’s in us! And for me, this is liberty; it helps me to see that I’m free to do what my deep and private heart knows is right, but what the world-church fears: to put my family first.

The astonishing part is this, though: that if my heart of hearts is to help the world, I can help to accomplish this by serving the body first! Jesus said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt. 14:24) and sent his disciples to preach to Israel only. But His plan was that when Israel, the House of God, had been taken care of, that the rest of the world should come into it, and thereby be taken care of as well! It’s the same with the church; we build up the house of God, growing ever more away from sin and towards God, and when, through our preaching and service, “the Lord add[s] to our number” we welcome them with glad and sincere hearts – more to love and serve! Amazing.

I love this excellent freedom and the one who brought it to me. I hope I can help grow it and pass it on.

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As I meditated on this, God reminded me of my experience in Basic Training. In training, the Drill Instructor’s goal is to remove from each recruit his/her inbred self-centeredness. They know until the self-centeredness is removed the recruits are not useful in the fight.

This process begins by giving recruits many new things to think about/take care of. I needed to dress a certain way, obey orders, move quicker than I was comfortable, allow others to dictate my schedule etc. Failure to comply with all these new requests leads to even more misery. Some failure to comply with a DI’s request means a soldier gets “smoked”: is made to do large amounts of push ups, sit ups, running in place etc.

The natural tendency in this environment is to focus on one’s own issues. There is a lot of new information to remember and screw ups are expensive. First priority is to make sure you are “squared away” and don’t worry about anyone else. In fact, it is somewhat good if someone else messes up. If the DI’s are smoking another soldier then they are most likely leaving you alone. Sweet!

Unfortunately, the DI’s are also trying to build a team. Part of their strategy was to punish the whole team if someone screwed up. So, your knucklehead fellow soldier decides to not polish his boots or forgets to put his rank on his BDU top and BAM a dozen guys that did nothing wrong are huffing and puffing with a DI telling them what screw ups they are. It does not take too many incidents like this before the most frequent offenders are getting a lot of attention from their fellow soldiers. Of course, if a squared away soldier spends too much time helping the slackers, the squared away soldier has the possibility of screwing up themselves and thus being the source of the next smoking session.

In the Army soldiers were motivated to be accountable to each other. They bore each other’s consequences, so each soldier wanted to succeed both for their own sake and the sake of the team. In the Army, the consequences are immediate and very palpable. In training, it means increased misery and pain, in war it means death.

Not surprisingly, fairly quickly, each soldier learns to do both, make sure they are squared away and taking the time to make sure other soldiers are squared away. As the training progresses a group of confused pinheads who are WAY too impressed with themselves becomes an obedient, well-behaved, motivated, committed and perhaps even somewhat useful team.

The call in the Kingdom is the same. We must be freed of our own sinful nature. We must first deal with our own failure before God and take responsibility for it. We are also called to help others deal with their failure before God. We are called to be part of Body and each part of the Body is meant to play a role and be an aid to the whole.

So how do those of us in the Body learn to balance keeping ourselves straight but not being so concerned with self that we don’t look out for others? Again, it takes commitment. It takes putting the whole, the glory of God, the advancement of the Kingdom ahead of our own comfort.

Soldiers are motivated by the immediacy and the severity of the consequences. The consequences in the Kingdom are less obvious and in some cases less immediate. However, the Kingdom consequences are infinitely more severe and eternal.

The Kingdom also has another difference. Soldiers get the job done mainly by “manning up” — simply trying harder. In the Kingdom, the key is to rely on God’s grace. A commandment in Scripture means a specific promise of God’s grace. If God calls us to bear our own load and to bear one another’s burdens then we can be certain that the grace to do just that is there for the asking.

Lord, please show us the consequences of not working as a team in the Kingdom. Show us the consequence of not carrying our own load before you and show us the consequence of not helping others bear their burden as well. Lord, also show us how to access the grace we need to do what you are calling us to do. In Jesus name, Amen.

Lord, help me to rely completely on the guidance and strength of your Holy Spirit in order that I might be better able to help others to find the strength they need.

Being Spirit-led is the key to these verses. My prayer is to be Spirit-led just as Paul instructed the Galatians.

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1. Are you loving others like Christ?
2. Are you experiencing joy in your life?
3. Is your heart in a place of peace?
4. Do you exercise patience with others?
5. Are you being kind to others?
6. Does goodness permeate your attitudes and actions?
7. Are you faithful?
8. Are your words in a spirit of gentleness?
9. Do you have self-control?

I had to answer “no” to some of those questions. My grandpa, Jerry Daley, wrote in today’s devotional: “The cross deals a constant blow to our pride and self-reliance.” He also said, “You can’t produce the character of Christ by trying harder.” In our failure, God creates a need for Him.

Take a spiritual check-up today. Replace self-reliance with the fruit of God’s strength and Spirit working in you.

I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect and we all will continue to make sinful choices, but thank God, He forgives and gives us grace.

Let’s all remain attentive to the Holy Spirit and allow our lives to be dedicated to the power of God that lives in us! He is the only one that can make changes in our mismanaged attempts of saving ourselves.

Amen and amen!!!

I am so foolish!!!

I forget that I have flesh that wars within me against the spirit of God and that I have to always be on guard against MYSELF! I don’t know about you, but my flesh tends to be a very loud, smooth talker, and if I don’t pay attention to who I am listening to inside my head, my flesh is all that I hear. Of course I don’t want to obey God! Of course I don’t FEEL “spiritual”! These are not my natural inclinations. BUT, thank God I am more than flesh and bone!

I need this scripture to remind me multiple times a day to listen to the Holy Spirit, and to recognize the evil desires of my flesh. Just because God speaks to me does not mean that they go away. Just because God expands my limited understanding of his grace to see that I can be free from that sin too, doesn’t mean that my flesh suddenly ceases to desire evil. So I must be vigilent, but rejoice! Because this is the key to living in the promises that God has for us. I KNOW that my flesh is trying to lead me astray, so I listen to what the spirit is saying, and in fact has already spoken to me. I do not have to FEEL spiritual or connected to God to discern myself from Him, nor do I have to feel these things to OBEY him, which is the heart of what God has been speaking to me. Though every thing within me rages against God my spirit says “YES!” I resist my flesh, and I obey God. It doesn’t look pretty, and it is certainly difficult to do at first. But if I recognize the war within me, agree with God that his blood can overcome any struggle that I encounter, and simply OBEY him through my actions, I see real change in my life. It is through this process that I will actually leave behind so many of my sinful ways, and cultivate a sensitivity to his spirit.

Maybe this is only for me, but I felt that I had to share it because I have known so many other people like myself who don’t know how to let the mountain top experience guide them through the next valley. For me, I have begun to see that what it means to live out the tremendously wonderful things that God calls us to, simply starts with choosing to obey him no matter how we feel about it. Because when we obey God, he has this funny way of changing our hearts and attitudes towards things. I know that I have seen that in my life. I’m looking forward to making choices in spite of myself to obey God in all the things that he has and will continue to reveal to me.

Daniel Cutrara

This, of course, at its core, is nothing more than unadulterated legalism. It’s saying that unless I measure up to some self-determined standard of “goodness”, God will not want to interact me. In other words, the gospel + performance.

But this whole idea isn’t something new for me; I have already dealt with the issue of legalism numerous times on multiple levels in regard to a plethora of topics. I’ve prayed over it, talked about it, read books on it, heard God speak to me about it, taught others about it, laughed over it, cried over it, judged others for it, had others judge me due to it, and yet somehow still find myself slipping into it with such relative ease.

Why is this so? After so much experience with this issue why do I still fall into it?

I think the answer has to do with the fact that while legalism is bad, there is something far worse.

Imagine for a moment if I had not fallen into legalism. Or for that matter, if after every time God taught me something about a particular sin in my life that I ended up never doing it again. What would be the result?

While initially I may rejoice in the freedom from these particular sins, eventually a snooty smugness would begin to creep over me. I would grow increasingly impatient in dealing with other people as the failed in areas of sin that I had now “conquered”. In fact, I would begin looking down on these people and conversely, expect them to look up to me. I’m quite sure my very presence would become completely intolerable as every time I entered a group of people I would come with the attitude of “perfect Jeremy has arrived everyone, be impressed”.

The sin of which I am now speaking is what we call pride. It is, by nature, far worse than any other sin because it assumes complete independence from God and total reliance on the self. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, he says that pride is the complete anti-God state of mind because if you’re so busy looking down on everyone else then how can you possibly see something that is above you?

So while I lament the fact that I still fall into sins that I have dealt with many times before, I am also glad that I will never be able to come before God and say “Things are going just swimmingly in regards to this whole sinning business, my track record is quite immaculate. Be impressed.” I’m so thankful that God will always use my perpetual sinning as a continual reminder of my need for Him. No day on this earth is ever going to come to pass where I can truthfully say “I don’t need the cross today”.

Earlier I had mentioned that I had felt like I should avoid conversing with God because he must be “very displeased with the current state of affairs in my soul”. Truth be told though, when has God ever not been very displeased with the current state of affairs in my soul? Sin has always been there, and yet that has never kept me from talking to Him before. In fact, the first time God and I ever talked was about this whole sinning business and quite a good conversation had we. And since our first conversation about sin went so well, perhaps I should go strike up a conversation with him about it again right now.

This is not a PG portion of the Bible. Paul is pretty heated about the false teachers who are going around and preaching a false gospel. The lie they are preaching is that you must receive circumcision in order to become a Jew so that you can partake of the promise of Abraham. Well, the promise of Abraham is by faith and we receive of the promise by faith, not by circumcision. This is good news for you and for me. While we were enemies of God, while we were against Him. He sent his Son Jesus to make a way for us to live in eternal communion with him. To accept the invitation the simple steps are repentance and faith towards God. Amazing.

Guard your faith, it is precious. Stay connected with those followers of Christ who you know will be able to keep you pointed in the right direction. Grace Church is so rich with these types of folks. Find them and get connected. It will keep you from unknowingly accepting as truth that which is not. Be careful in your walk of faith a little lie in your thinking will do lots of damage. It only takes a little yeast to leaven the whole lump. The stuff permeates. Be vigilant against lies in your thinking. Stay rooted in the knowledge of Christ and what he has done for you. Take pains with these things, be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all.

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I wish it were true that after my recent healing journey, when I actually experienced what Jesus did for me at the cross, I had never again been shackled by the burden of trying to earn God’s love. But of course, I need my Savior moment by moment. When I fall into that trap again, usually daily, of trying to pray enough or work enough, Jesus will sometimes show me another picture: I am sweeping with an old broom as hard as I can, earning only heartache, blisters, and self-pity. Then Jesus gently takes the broom out of my clenched hands. And I cry tears of relief. He has done all the work. He died on the cross and swept my life clean. My own mind or the enemy may tell me that I will never “get it.” But Jesus tells me a better story, of a life that has been redeemed and swept away by His tender love.

Not only that, the Scripture commands us to “Get rid of the slave woman and her son.”

Now that we have seen how God is not pleased with our attempts to please Him by following law, we see that He commands us to take action. What action is proscribed but to forcefully eliminate. The meaning of Get rid of is to throw out. No hard thinking here. Just simple obedience says, Get rid of whatever it is that’s not grace. ‘Cause it’s not God.

The world is used to one system: works. Although it longs for grace, it only knows works and law. So, it will expect the same from you. It will hurl at you its demands. But you and I have a much better life we live in - - - it’s grace!!

You are a child of promise. Life takes on new meaning when we realize that despite what the world, the flesh, and the devil tell us, WE ARE FREE. In Jesus, all is already accomplished.

The world around is is steeped in guilt and law. Despite their despair, people are crying out for grace. Who around you is in need of grace?

Prayer Flow:
Lord Jesus, thank you for doing it all for me. I know I wander daily, and I just repent. You love me. Just like I am. I choose to trust You now, and I choose to line my attitude up with Yours and cast out anything that screams against your grace. Let my heart, tounge, and hands carry your blessing to him, to her today. And when I fall, pick me back up and flow though me again. Thank You, Jesus. Amen.

These themes are not unknown to mankind. But anyone who is a law giver is trying to place themselves in the place of God, the only one who has authority to give laws.

We can see both of these attitudes in action in the serpent in the garden of Eden. The serpent replaced the law of God with a different law, with the objective being to bring Adam and Eve into the same punishment that he is in.

If God is God, if God is truly good, loving, kind, and desires us, then the laws (covenants) that he has given us are the best and flawless. He gave the first law (covenant) as a step to the second covenant, in which we can enter into his rest, into his delight. Even the words of Isaiah following the passage quoted by Paul leave no doubt about how God desires us:

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed.”

The laws that do not come from God seem to always bring condemnation. Even the first covenant of the law did not bring condemnation, but a realization of sin, inadequacy, and the need for a savior that would bring reconciliation. If the ultimate goal of God was to condemn man, then his work would have been completed in the garden by sending Adam and Eve to hell, promptly and forthwith. But he did not! The only reason that God excluded man from the garden was to prevent further damage. The tree of life was intended to be eaten (remember that only one tree was excluded) and, as a result of the finished work of the Messiah Jesus, we are now enjoying the fruit of that tree and will live forever, as members of the family, brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Jesus talked a lot about behavior, both good and bad. But he still made it clear that righteousness was not gained by obeying the law. The perfect obedience of the religious rulers was not enough to gain eternal life. It required gaining riches in heaven. And all of the things that cause a person to gain heavenly treasure (give anonymously, pray alone, pray succinctly, fast surreptitiously) do not produce anything that is visible. The certainty of the reward is based on having faith in the one who sees and will reward. And this faith is the same faith that caused Abraham to gain righteousness just by believing. Check out Hebrews 11 again, and see how faith was rewarded with the blessings that the legalism promises will come only to those who can obey perfectly. It is the finished work of Jesus, who completely fulfilled all the requirements of the law that opened the door to heaven to everyone. The law never did work as a path to heaven. Faith plus anything corrupts faith and brings bondage. Isn’t it great that we do not have to do anything to inherit? Just believe. I knew a guy in college who tried being a christian but just couldn’t accept the deal of getting salvation for free, without works. So he became Jewish. And that is our struggle against the old man, the bent man. To live the life, we must accept the freedom that is given and live the life of faith.

He reminds them of how they loved him in return, in spite of his ailment that was also a trial to them. He cries out to them, to cast away the traditions that would enslave them. Trading traditions was never his aim, but eliminating them as a basis for their relationship with God Himself. The basis of his motivation is deep, heart felt, and demonstrated love, not to win something for himself or to control them! Not at all, but that their hearts would follow Christ, that His love would pour through them all… that love would motivate them, rather than an obligation to law that always ends up in bondage. He juxtaposes his heart with the controlling hearts of the Judiasers… “to shut out and make much of themselves…” and he explains that their zeal is no measure of their truth.

I’m at War Cry right now. It’s been a long time since I was anything-teen. I want them to know that I love them, and yet I find it’s not so easy to reach back into my heart of the past and let go of my forty-something traditions. I’m wondering if it’s such a challenge to overcome a few years of maturing, to relate to people that I have actually been just like, I wonder how much harder it is to reach out to the nations, to those that I’ve never been like.

How much are we willing to become like others so they will see and believe our love for them is genuine… and that Christ is genuine, and truth is truth, and that they should choose freedom…

I pray that God will make provision to advance His Kingdom through you and me that His will be done, and that Jesus will forgive us and help us to forgive and not easily be offended by those that are different from us, and that the Holy Spirit will lead us away from the temptation to draw the deadly cloak of the law round about us or to drape it on others for our own comfort, but that He would deliver us from all kinds of evils, keeping us free from bondage, won at such a high cost, the infinite suffering of Christ. May He be great in our eyes tonight…

Yet, here I am, 50 years later, still having to face the reality that some of my motives for being/doing good are still to get something for myself…to be thanked…to be well thought of… to be loved and accepted – even by God. I now realize that as a child, my motive for being a “good girl” was to gain the approval and love of my parents and from others. And some of that is still in me. Looking back over my walk with the Lord, I can see many evidences where I have turned “… back to those weak and miserable principles”, becoming “enslaved by them all over again.” (Gal. 4:9). What really feels true, although I know better in my head, is the lie that if I just pray more or do more, then God would love me more and then I could become more intimate with Him. I have to counter that lie with the truth that God loves me and accepts me just as I am even with all my failures and inadequacies!

“But now that you know God – or rather are known by God – how is it that you are turning back…? (Gal.4:9) The cry of my soul is to know God and experience Him more and more. But this is a faith walk – “not leaning on my own understanding” (Prov. 3:5) or on my own self-sufficiency, but learning to trust Him more with my life. I am so thankful that I am “…known by God”! I’m reminded of Psalm 139: He knows my actions, my thoughts and motives, my words – all my ways. I am fully KNOWN, yet fully LOVED! He calls me, “righteous”, “precious”, “My child”! Hallelujah! What hope, in spite of my failures and shortcomings!

So yes, there are times I do “turn back to those weak and miserable principles and are enslaved by them all over again”. But I also have to “realize I’m not God” and I will continue to fail. “I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable”. But I do “earnestly believe that I matter to God and that He has the power to help me recover.” I can’t change my own heart and mind, but I can cooperate with God and “consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control” and let Him change me. (Celebrate Recovery, Principles 1-3, based on Matt. 5:3-5).

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Christ + placing our faith in Him = Salvation

NOT:

Christ + works/complying with law = Salvation

Can any of you relate with me when I say, “If I do this (insert action here) then God will love me. If I eat my cornflakes everyday at 8 AM, read my Bible for exactly 45 minutes, help my neighbor out, pray like this, go to Church every chance I get, etc…?” Pretty soon we have a list of things we think God wants us to do in order to be saved. I definitely went through a period of my life where I thought that’s what God wanted from me, my acts. I was exhausted and frustrated trying to live up to what I thought was godly. Then one day, it was as if a light bulb went off. God revealed to me that I would never be good enough! It was freeing because Christ was and is good enough; in fact He’s perfect. I can live by my faith in Christ and God instead of these laws.

Please understand that I’m not saying that those things I just mentioned are bad in and of themselves. Eat your cornflakes, help your neighbor, read your Bible and so forth. However, we begin to err when we make those things the focus of our relationship with God, instead of making God the focus of our relationship with Him. This leads to us forgetting the amazing sacrifice Christ made for us so that we can place our faith in God and not in the “laws” we have to follow. I’m not saying to throw the Old Testament out, but I’m saying, let’s view it through what Jesus did for us and live by faith, not by legalistic works. I’m going to end with an excerpt from a song. Meditate on the lyrics and think about what Christ did for you and me. Faith in Him is what we need to live a transformed life. His sacrifice is complete, perfect and satisfies everything. Our compliance with laws will never cut it. Thank you, Lord.

“And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
My lips shall still repeat

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

O praise the One who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead

We’ll praise the One who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead”

(“Jesus Paid it All”
Taken from “Passion: Everything Glorious” CD)

Of course, even this understanding can result in a works mentality apart from the grace of God. Ultimately nothing is more important than our relationship with God, and that is based solely on God’s grace and not at all on our efforts. Praise God for that!

Grace to you today and forever.

Sometimes its easy to read the Old Testament and see a God who is concerned with the law above all else. But Paul points out that God made this covenant with Abraham 430 years before the law was made. God took a flawed man and promised himself to him through an “everlasting covenant”. What proof that God is not merely a God of anger, for whom the law is foremost on his mind, but a God of such generous love that he would give himself forever to a man who simply believed him and tried to walk humbly before him - and then give his only son so that we, who have rebelled against him, would be grafted in and forever saved through him! God truly does give himself for us, doing all the work - and it’s no small thing to be part of a covenant with God and the recipients of his promises, because he never fails.

Listen Now

1. They can fly (this does not contribute the analogy, but nevertheless its true and perfect at that)

2. They are transformed

3.No weapon formed against them shall prosper (help me out… in terms of most predators.)

4.They have uber amounts of grace

5. And this particular butterfly left behind an unscathed legacy

…All that to say this. I find it almost unfathomably ELECTRIC that Christ “has rescued us from the curse…when he was hung on the cross.” I think it is most amazing the literal payment he made. God is so real and literal always. He didn’t use any coupons for this cost…he paid it in FULL in the highest sense. Now I understand where Jesus is coming from when he says when a friend asks you to go a mile, go two. That is a microcosm of the superfluous/unnecessary FLOOD that Jesus gave us through salvation. It is nuts how inappropriate and scandalous his love is!!!

The butterfly can’t even hold a candle to us… we made out like bandits! But to conclude the analogy…

We start as mere worms (dirt, actually), but through the power of payment and love we are transformed and heavily doused with grace. Once we reach our true identity in Christ (now butterflies) we have a grizzly protection system within and around us (cardiac glycosides); empowering us access to true grace that allows us to leave a beautiful legacy (lone butterfly wing).

I thank Jesus for not just a big love and sacrifice…but a SPECIFIC, strategic, and superfluous payment that allows us the incredible privilege of being more than conquerors in Christ.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Thanks Dad!