Book Review: The Grace Awakening - Charles Swindoll

Believing in grace is one thing. Living it is another.

   The subtitle to this very competent work sums up exactly what this book is about. Chuck Swindoll takes grace, God’s unconditional favour, and proves it to be a theological truth. From there he goes on to explain the many ways in which it can and must be applied in the everyday life of the believer. Swindoll’s focus, on the freedom of the believer, under grace, and the various implications that this has, has challenged me on many aspects of my understanding of grace. He manages to break grace down into practical, real-life situations and explain its workings in the average Christian.

   Chapters such as Isn’t grace risky? Guiding other to Freedom and The Grace to Let Others Be, are just some of the challenging topics we encounter when we live out a life of grace. Chuck is real about these difficulties and makes no bones about the role that legalistic people play in making grace that much more of a priority in the lives of believers.

   Chuck does, however, only focus on grace in the form of receiving it and extending it, made clear by the quote, “… grace received but not extended is dead grace …” He makes very little mention of grace being the great enabler for the believer. This makes it a bit one-sided in terms of a full picture of grace, but that which he does present on the topic, he presents very clearly and very insightfully.

   On my journey of grace there have been a few diamonds which I have found to propel me into a deeper understanding of His love and grace for me, Grace Awakening is one of them. It may be a classic, which I have only recently discovered, but if you haven’t read it, as a New Testament believer, I highly recommend it. Read it, enjoy it and feel free, because you are!

StartLiving rating: 7/10

Why Church #2: In the Meanwhile

In the Meanwhile

"I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law (traditions of men), then Christ died in vain.” - Galatians 2:21 (brackets added)

     The bible is clear on a few things when it comes to church; firstly it makes it clear that we should never forsake the gathering of the saints (Heb 10:24-25). Living the Christian life is hard enough, but living it in isolation is spiritual suicide. The strengthening, support, council and wisdom that we receive from fellow believers play a vital part in us living the victorious Christian life and running the race until the end. The gifts of the Spirit should flow freely when the saints get together, that is prophecy, healing, miracles, words of knowledge and wisdom, thus encouraging the body of believers to perform the great commission.

     Secondly, when the saints get together, it is an ideal opportunity for the Christians to take advantage of the so-called fivefold ministry (Eph 4:11-15). That is individuals who are anointed (gifted) in certain areas of ministry, for the benefit of the church. These gifts include that of the prophet, the apostle, the teacher, the evangelist and the pastor; all of which are needed in their entirety in order to have a healthy and effective church.

     So, for all intense and purposes, as our culture has evolved, so has our definition of church. As our culture and way of doing life has started picking up pace and demanding more of our time, so Christians have become spiritually lazy, not wanting to take responsibility for their own spiritual growth. They thus make time once a week to get to a church building where a person stands in front telling them what God wants to tell them for the week. They may even sing a few songs, maybe some favourites, thus constituting the church-goers outward expression of worship for the week.

     This self-centred Christianity from believers has created a demand for spiritual leaders who just feed the people what they want to hear, knowing full well that the majority of people attending a church service are there for reasons other than wanting to be confronted with the truth of the gospel. This position that many spiritual leaders are placed in allows them to control and manipulate the saints as they see fit, because the saints never mature and don’t know any better. They have no idea that they are nowhere near the potential that God created them to reach.

     Thus, rather than blaming church institutions and leaders, for the current state of the church, I blame Christians. If enough Christians bothered to read their bibles and allowed God to speak to them in their personal times of worship and prayer, they would slowly begin to mature; they would start to ask mature questions that demand straight answers. A situation such as this would force church leaders to keep the main thing, the main thing – Jesus. It would stop the nonsense of placing pastors on pedestals, as super-humans, and the allowing o money to determine what God has called the body of Christ to do.

     If more Christians started seeing themselves as the church and understanding the responsibility that comes with it, then modern churches would look and operate a lot more differently. The manipulation, pressure and expectation that is created in a church environment, is unnatural and not what God intended for it to be. Churches would rather become places of gathering, where the fivefold ministry can equip and mature the saints into influencing the world. Church would not be seen as an impotent institution but rather as an effective and vibrant lifestyle, one that will catch the attention of the world and allow us to proclaim the good news of God’s love and grace to those who so badly need it.

     For those of you, who have become disorientated with church, don’t give up. Church is God’s plan A; you are God’s plan A. He is coming back for His bride, not a critical, cynical bride, but a pure and spotless one. Your mandate thus remains the same as always; tell the world how much Jesus loves them.

     I encourage those of you who have never questioned your church or the church in general on some of the issues I’ve alluded to above, start looking at what the bible says about the stuff that goes on, on a typical Sunday morning (or evening), does it fit with scripture? Are the traditions of men making the sacrifice of Christ a vain one?

Why Church #1: In the Beginning

     In the Beginning

"And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence." - Colossians 1:17-18

    Many Christians find themselves in a precarious position. They love God and love their saved and un-saved friends, but have become totally disillusioned with church. Many have been hurt by leadership, some have become burnt out and overworked and others have just become frustrated, because church as we see it today does not resemble church as presented in the New Testament. There is also another group of Christians, those that go to church, and have never asked any of these vexing questions. Most people just go to church because their parents did or because they see it as the right thing to do once they come into a relationship with Jesus; it is the right thing to do, but how are we going about doing it?

     None of the above circumstance is ideal. My question is simple: Is church, as we do it today, what God intended for it to be and as the bible instructs it to be? If not, what can be done?

     In order to answer these questions we need to define what church is; and in order to do this we need to dispel some myths of what many see church as being. Firstly, church is not a building. No-where in the New Testament does the bible record Christians meeting at the same place every time or building a building for this purpose, for that matter. Buildings are practical, but one would be in error to think of the church as being a building. Secondly, church is not limited to a specific day or a specific time; more specifically in our context, church is not only for an hour on a Sunday. Thirdly, church is not the only place you can hear from God, worship Him or come into His presence. This is illustrated extensively in the New Testament and yet the following is still a major line of thought for the average believer, "I need to hear from God, let me go to church".

     You and I, WE, are the church. The bible uses the picture of the church being a body, where each one of us is a different part of the body (1 Cor 12:12-27) The body is made up of its different members, the nose, the ears, the arms etc. The eye can’t smell like the nose can, nor can the mouth walk like the legs can – each member is important and needs to be functioning properly in order for the body to be healthy and effective. Thus, each one of us, who make up the church, have important roles to play (Rom 12:3-8)

     Another picture that the bible uses is that of the church being a bride (Eph 5:31-32 and Rev 21:9), and Jesus being the bride-groom. That one day Jesus is coming back for his pure and spotless bride and those of us who have received Him as our Lord and Savior, being under His blood, will be part of the marriage. This puts emphasise on the price Jesus paid for us and that by us receiving Him, by faith, He sees us as this spotless bride, allowing us to enter into His presence with confidence and joy (Hebr 10:22)

     When we look through the book of Acts, we see the saints coming together on a daily basis, sharing food, money and experiences together (Acts 4:32-35) Not being concerned about building their own kingdoms, but being fully convinced and concerned about advancing the kingdom of God. We see them being persecuted and scattered, spreading the good news of Jesus wherever they went. They were not consumed with what other believers or non-believers thought about them, but all-consumed with what God purposed in their hearts for them to do.    

     To conclude this introduction as to Why Church, we see clearly that the bible presents the church as being; a body, a bride, sharing, caring, structured and effective, changing the known-world forever. What we see today is, too often along the lines of church being a business, an institution, a program, controlling, lifeless and ineffective. These are harsh words, but they need to be said. There are many great people doing many great things for God around the world, but if the church, globally, was doing what it was meant to be doing, over the last two-thousand years, the world would look a lot differently to what it does now. Think about it and read the follow-up posts to this one, they will be more specific and hopefully very helpful.