Sunday 29 November 2015

Making void the Grace of God

"I don't make void the Grace of God.  For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing." (Gal 1:21)

Quite a scary thought that we can make the Grace of God void in our lives.  The only way we do this is by relying on our own works to keep and maintain our salvation.  The Law which came through Moses, showed that human endeavour was utterly useless to keep and maintain a standard of holiness. In fact, the Law produced more sin in us. (Rom 7:8)  Must be the rebellious heart in mankind.  We see a sign, "don't touch, wet paint" and the first thing we want to do is to touch and see if it is wet, or "don't walk on the grass" and it almost impels us to try.

The Law was similar in its way to draw us into doing what we shouldn't (Rom 7:23) as it made us focus on the don't and we became sin conscious.  The bible is clear that what we focus on, we become.

When Paul spoke to Peter, the opening verse of scripture for this blog, he brought correction as Peter was hypocritically social to the "uncircumcised" until some of the "circumcised" joined them.  The Law of Moses dictated that the Jews not eat with Gentiles so by moving back to Law, Peter was making the grace of God void in his life.

Christianity is to be lived out in faith by the grace of God, which is His empowering presence in our lives to help us to do what God requires us to do.  Christ dwells in us, and as Paul asserted, he was crucified with Christ, so that the life he lived, he lived purely by faith in Jesus who gave Himself up on that cross. (Gal 2:20).  "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." This is a life livedin complete dependence and faith on the empowering grace of Christ within us.

We have God's moral law which is the guideline for our faith and we know not to steal, kill or covert etc. Darkness cannot fellowship with light, so if we have a battle (i.e. with envy), we rely on the grace of God to help us overcome.  We repent of envy and hand it over to God and ask by His grace to replace it with thankfulness and a spirit of contentment.  If we rely on the grace of God in faith and listen to what He tells us to do, we will overcome temptation.

When Paul said it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, I believe he understood a principle of the Law of life and death.  His fleshly desires were to be crucified with Christ, so Christ's life could be lived out through him.  His main focus was on Christ, becoming like Him, which made him Christ-focused and not sin-focused.

Hebrews encourages us to keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.  Keeping our eyes on Him, will change us to be more like Him and we will desire to follow Him and His ways.  Filling up on Christ will help us to follow the desires of the Spirit rather then the desires of our flesh.

Righteousness can never come through works.  We are right before God purely through the Cross.  He who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor 5:21)
There is nothing we can do to earn our righteousness.  All we can do is gratefully and thankfully accept the grace of our Loving Father and rest in the atonement of the Cross of Christ, relying on its cleansing and empowering virtues to become more and more like our Lord and Saviour.








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