“… but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sinned reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness leading into eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This verse is like our view of the Redwoods. There is much more than meets the eye. Sin cannot overwhelm neither can circumstances be so impossible that grace is not waiting on scene to do “so much more.” Grace is a personal relationship working inside-out as well as outside circumstances - in. It is about two persons in relationship! One person is you and the other person is too amazing to describe!
The other side of our grace relationship is God Himself. Not the image of God who is in our mind, nothing that small. It is The Eternal Reality of God Himself. The I AM Who creates out of nothing! This is the person on the other side of our personal relationship because we are in Jesus Christ. It is not only GOD, it is The Holy Spirit, it is The Lord Jesus Christ, it is the Triune Godhead Person! I know! How can it be? Yes, it is the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses and the God of Jesus. Our grace is from out of God, our personal God, who provides power for us to accomplish His will ... and so much more! This grace, the Grace of our Triune God, is “this grace in which we stand,” Romans 5:2. How glorious is our God!
Our Triune God provides His resurrection power AND the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus to us His created and redeemed beings. He gives salvation from our guilt but so much more … He give us the power to live His life and produce righteous fruit. He gives the capacity to glorify Himself through power in us to be who we are intended to be! Only in Him can we be whole, solid and true, full of wisdom and righteousness. We have the wisdom of Jesus and the mind of Christ because we are on the earth as He is now in heaven, 1John 4:17b. This is His provision of salvation those who believe have!
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”
There is a catch! We have to believe it. We have to accept it honestly within our own soul. The kicker? He gives us also faith to believe. How glorious is God! He gives us His very own Life so He can be glorified in us and we can be glorified in Him. Consider His prayer to His and our Father in John 17. We are containers for His grace, 2Cor. 4:7, united in Him. Hallelujah or just WOW!
How sad it is, we consume so little of what He willingly provides. His grace flows out from His own love. How patient He is with our stubborn wills! Are we any different than the Israelites in history? How many times did God hit them on side of their heads with a 2X4? Not only during 40 years in the desert but after they were in the promised land, a divided kingdom? The self-deception of sin is pervasive, we are equally vulnerable and as guilty, as we observe Israel in history.
Remember Israel’s human name? It was Jacob. Remember Jacob’s dream? After leaving home on foot heading north-east toward Haran to Laban’s place, he put in a long day on the road. His first night out he found a stone to rest his head. It was here, at Bethel (House of God), God appeared to him in a dream.
A ladder dropped out of heaven connecting to earth. Angels were ascending and descending back and forth from heaven and earth. God also appeared at the top of the ladder (or next to Him) and extended the promises of Abraham on to and through Jacob. Then God tells Jacob:
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back into this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Jacob’s God is our God. His promises to Abraham and Jacob are proven examples of His faithfulness to us. If He is proven faithful by the witness of history, how much more, after not sparing His own Son but given Him up for us all, how will He not with Him freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32.
Jacob’s ladder is replaced in our heart with so much more! God has established the reign of grace to teach us about holiness and the glory of being united in Christ and destined for a marriage with the Lamb. We are provided with divine storehouses of resources so we can weave righteousness garments which become the pure linen we wear at our wedding, Revelation 19:11.
While we have this spectacular, stunning milestone before for us, we waste our divine resources creating little idols and prejudices even though we have the risen Jesus dwelling within us. We have no excuse! We have His written revelation plus we have affirming science and history. Forgive us Lord God, for our unbelief!
Our task on this earth, is to prepare for our inheritance with His inheritance which is in us, Eph. 1:11-14, 18.
“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen,
bright and pure”-
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. –Rev. 19:7-8.
-to be continued