Grace Tension

Grace:    Unmerited favour or goodwill towards someone or something.

Work:     Exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something (labour, toil)

Tension:  Two balancing forces causing rigidness and stretching.

If grace is the one end of the tension balance, then what is the other end? Works, of course. Before you stone me, know this: Grace is the biggest part of my Christian walk and is infused into every area of my life (read other posts on this blog).

We are born again by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:9) and we are called to walk our Christian lives in the same way (Colossians 2:6). Grace is His favour extended to us and faith is us taking hold of this favour; believing it and receiving it.

It’s quite clear that there is God’s part and that there is our part. The problem comes in, as we walk out our Christian life, that our part gets reduced to a bunch of activities we perform, in order to try and earn God's favour. Anything that we do to try and earn God's favor is legalism, it's a works-based faith that has fueled religion (not in the good sense) for centuries. Bottom line, we cannot earn God's favour by what we do, it is all about what He has done, through Jesus, on the Cross. However there might still be some work involved, but it's not the kind we immediatly conjure up in our heads; let's take a look.

If grace is just receiving what God has done, how do I receive and understand fully, what God has done for me and apply it to my life? This is where the tension comes in: I like to call it positioning. We need to position ourselves to fully comprehend His grace in and through our lives. It doesn’t just happen, it takes intentionality and purpose. We have to intentionally and purposefully position ourselves in such a manner that we receive everything that God has for us, everything that Jesus made available through the atonement. How do we know if we have access to something if no-one has told us, or if we haven't read it or seen it? We will never know.

Sometimes grace takes work; we have to work at understanding it. This is the tension, the paradox if you will. Two, seemingly opposite, truths and passions, raging alongside one other, both being exceedingly necessary to make sense of what we believe. It is across this tension-bridge that revelation knowledge, relationship and trust can be delivered, flowing from the cross, flowing from Grace, flowing from Jesus to us.

Let’s not underestimate the work it takes to be fully submerged in grace. Organised religion tries to sell us a works based Christianity. But, instead of trying to earn His favour through good works, let’s strive to understand that His grace is sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9) and rest (Hebrews 4:11) in the knowledge that, we labour into Jesus and not for Him.

Rest: It's a good thing





     "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" - Matthew 11:28

     When people hear the word rest, most would conjure up ideas of sleeping, sipping a cocktail on the beach or just relaxing with a book on your couch. In Christian circles rest is used to describe a day in the week which we are supposed to put aside our day jobs and take time to focus on family and God. Rest is an important part of living a productive life because, after all, we are not machines and need to take time out to gain perspective and re-charge our batteries, so to speak.

     But, I believe there is more to rest than just the physical and psychological advantages. God has instituted a state of rest for all believers to live in, not only on a certain day or at an allocated time, but rather as a permanent spiritual state.  When we are at rest in the spirit it affects every area of our lives, as everything we see in the physical is preceded in the spiritual.

"There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His." - Hebrews 4:9-10 

     The state of rest is available to every believer. The writer of Hebrews compares the rest that we have access to, to the rest that God entered into after the six days of creation. That we have no right in relying on our works any longer, but rather on everything that God has done for us. A place of rest, for every believer, is in fact a place of faith. It takes the onus off us to perform our religious duties to please God, rather placing the emphasise of our walk on putting faith in what God has already done for us; redeeming us from our sins and giving us everything we need to live a victorious Christian life.

"Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience" - Hebrews 4:11

     Entering into His rest doesn't happen automatically after we get saved, it is a deliberate attempt to live a life of faith. Once we understand that there is nothing that we can do to make God love us more, then we realize that we need to have faith in what He has already done. This is the most productive place we can be in our spiritual lives, where we realize our efforts are futile and His provision is more than enough

"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" - Matthew 11:29

     Jesus is our rest. It is not a day or an idea, it is a spiritual reality, one that is imperative for us as Christians to walk in if we are going to finish the race strong and make a difference along the way. For too long now, we have relied on our own efforts and have gotten worn out quickly, dropping from exhaustion along the way. Let's be diligent to enter His rest by His grace, let's take Jesus up on His offer to take up His yoke. Rest in Him and you will be surprised at how productive you'll become!

*All scripture quoted from the NKJV

How Do I Really Know? #1

Picture by: Kirsti Pennels

   One of the most frequently asked questions I have come across in talking and ministering to people, is regarding their salvation: "How do I really know I'm saved?" This came as quite a shock to me, because some of these people I would have regarded as being 'strong' believers and yet they still struggled with this foundational issue.

   In contemplating this phenomenon, I started to see a common denominator, that is, in almost every case, these folks were extremely religious. What I mean by religious is, that they said and did all the right things, and were convinced that in the doing, they would earn acceptance from God. A works based faith. This is a very dangerous place to be, because even though many main streams of Christianity preach a version of this, it places the onus on your works, and not on faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, for your salvation.

   Let's see what the bible says we need to do to be saved and how we will know that we are, it's pretty simple:
In John 3:16, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, explaining to him the new-birth experience, saying that "...whoever believes in Him (Jesus) shall not perish but have eternal life ... " The Apostle Paul reiterates this in Romans 10:9 when he writes, " That if you confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" Belief (or faith) is an issue of the heart, only God knows your heart and sees your faith, thus He is faithful, by grace, to save you and you automaticaly enter into His eternal blessing.

   Due to a severe lack of understanding of what happens when you get born-again, people tend to get disillusioned, because they feel as though nothing has changed and start to doubt whether, in fact, they were/are truly saved. In a nutshell, this is what happens when you put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Saviour: a)Your sins are forgiven, past, present and future tense b) You are redeemed from every curse that came with the fall of man ,when sin entered the world, with Adam. These include poverty, sickness, disease and fear (all having their root in sin) c) You have the power of God inside of you to change your circumstances and those of others (2Peter 1:3) d) You have inherited eternal life with the Father (John15) (this is a hugely broad topic which deserves deeper exposition, future posts will deal with what happens when you get saved).

   So, realising what you can tap into, once you are born-again, will go a long way in making a reality of what has happened to you in the spirit. Remember you are made up of spirit, soul and body. When you get saved it is your spirit that is renewed, your soul and body remain pretty much the same, initialy. Thus, in the parable of the sower (Matt 13:18), Jesus explains exactly what happens when people start to doubt, He says "When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away that what was sown in his heart" This makes it very clear as to why people sometimes doubt their salvation, satan steals the truth and replaces it with confusion. There is only one way to counter this: " ... know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

   What is the truth then? The truth is that "Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God ... if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us" (1John 4:7-11) "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God ... God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him" (1John 4:15-16)

Question: How do I know if I'm saved?
Answer: Love.

"The only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love" - Galatians 5:6

   If you love others the way God loves you, not because you have to, but because you want to, because you love them with His love. Because He is on the inside of you. Then there should be no doubt! (see 'Love, Life and Ministry' posts)

   Salvation is thus not a: fruit, works or performance based issue, it is a heart issue. A thankful (loving) heart will produce fruit and inevitably works (James 2:26), not the other way around. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God - no by works, so that no man can boast" (Eph 2:8-9)

All scripture quoted from NIV (1984) with emphasis added