Pastors should take an oath when they step into the pulpit, the one requiring them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God! When we get partial truth we walk away vulnerable not knowing “the rest of the story.” Oh, it was true enough but partial truth is very dangerous and deceptive. We end up being dragged in the water to our heavenly port while missing out on blessings we never knew we had!
Being born again in Christ is like being rescued at sea by a huge ship. Our life line is the umbilical cord of Jesus’ blood thrown out to us. We individually accept the provisions of His life or try to survive on our own. Within our grasp is a life preserver to pull up over our head so we can rest inside its flotation and be safe. Its a grace connection providing comfort and relief. The boat is under power so we can hold on and know we are going to be saved.
This is the pulpit message often heard and is true! We have taken the life line and we are being pulled into port against the pull of the worldly system around us. Others in the water all around us have life preservers and are holding on too! But there are a few who are actually pulling themselves in closer to the ship fighting the pull of the water as the ship continues to make headway toward the unseen distant port.
These few are working at getting closer to the ship and out of the water. They are investigating life on board the ship of grace. They expend extra energy pulling themselves closer, hand over hand on the wet slippery rope, pulling themselves through the rough sea closer and closer to the side of the moving ship. The difficulty reaching the dangling rope ladder while trying, at the same time, to keep grasp on the tow rope with one hand while switching over to the other climbing up the single knotted rope on the curved side of the ship seems an impossible task.
Not many see the point. It is so much easier resting in the life preserver and letting the ship do the work. The saved people being pulled in the preservers don’t realize the value and eternal impact of fellowshipping in the body of saved people on board the kingdom ship. There is actually a grace culture operating on the topside, unseen by those in the water.
There are signs and hangings on the sides of the ship. Welcome signs and help announcements are plastered all over the ship offering showers, food and comfort. Banners are everywhere but you have to choose to come onboard! You can just securely hang on for the ride ‘till the ship docks in the heavenly port.
Once the people in the preservers arrive at port they are going to be processed, giving an account for their time in the water. They didn’t take advantage of the grace benefits paid for by the death of God’s Son.
It is one thing to have a grace connection but quite another to join into God’s culture of grace. We can’t learn God’s spiritual culture of grace while staying in the water. The only way to get out of the water is to get to know the Captain of our salvation, recognize His voice and open our heart to His word, Revelation 3:20. We are urged to engage His life using His power to put to death what is natural in our own self. But it is much easier staying in the water awaiting for our permanent port of call.
It is true, grace is God’s unmerited favor to undeserving mankind but when we enter into grace, we find much more than just salvation. Grace is a relationship, unmerited, yes, but our sovereign Lord has lifted us into a status of sonship so we should be willing to take on His likeness.
Grace is one of the most frequently used words in the Christian community. Most people understand Webster’s 11 definitions in my 4th edition College Dictionary. In fact, it is likely you will find Webster’s theological definition in you local Sunday Class, “the unmerited love and favor of God toward mankind.” This comes close to a definition learned in Doctrine 51 at San Francisco Baptist College many years ago. “The unmerited favor of God toward man” is a definition you will hear from today’s seminary graduates. But do you hear about God’s grace relationship from your local pulpit? Or is it about being saved and following protocol for heaven, period!
Grace is the operating culture governed by our sovereign God between His Body and other people. It is an unseen reality acting within the believer’s life according to God’s purpose sourced in redemption and God’s love.
Grace flows from God independent of human influence as an expression of αγάπη love, but … it is also a function of faith, our response to His grace! Yes, faith is a gift and a response to grace but God’s mercy grants our participation in grace through the believer’s will to choose. We become, by His mercy, an exalting factor of God Himself placing us in His grace process. We are to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Himself![i]
Our participation in God’s glory through His created life vaults us to unreachable heights. He exalts Himself in us beyond what is natural life!
Jazz singer Abbey Lincoln sings “Love Walked right in and drove the shadows away.” This is the kind of connection our carnal self yearns to make. “One magic moment and my heart seemed to know that love said hello, though not a word was spoken.” A human love connection is the measure of our carnal expectation. It is our natural romantic hope. We are frail, vulnerable and constantly looking for one connection that will fill our longing. This natural desire and hope is indeed part of the natural self we bring into our life in Christ. It remains part of our “want to” after we become born again in Christ. It is not sin but it can turn into sin as it continually wars on us because we have been created new in Christ. We now have a grace connection, far better than a human love connection.
The grace connection God provides is outside the scope of human radar. It can easily be trumped when starved spiritually with competing natural interests fed by human desire. Natural love is not bad unless it replaces faith!
Man by nature is self-reliant. Going outside of what is “reasonable” appears to be avoiding responsibility. Mankind wants to be in control and manage his connections rejecting God’s grace culture and its glory.
Submission to God is the antithesis of being in control. “God made me with the ability to do it myself and that is what I want to do.” It often takes a long time to get our “want to” fixed. A crises or catastrophe may shake us out of our selfness. But even then, it may take a long time for a man to honestly face self-deception, arrogance and sin. It becomes more apparent as we age but we also become hardened with time and change is much more difficult.
While thousands of men and women are processing the depths of their own souls against the constant tick of God’s clock, God has already provided an out for man’s ultimate judgment and death. God has reconciled man to Himself patiently waiting for reality to become visible on the big screen in man’s own heart.
If Jesus, the second Adam, had not left His rightful place beside the Father, clothed Himself in man’s human flesh, lived within the polluted contamination of sin without sin, we would not have access to a grace connection. Jesus, the second Adam, handled Satan’s temptation flawlessly, making available resurrection power within grace.
There is a way which seems right to men. It is the reasonable, the tangible and logical approach. God’s way is totally different, it is higher, wiser and holy, a righteous way. God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up so that we would have access to His Holy Self. Jesus said it best, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” John 14:6.
There are hundreds, even thousands of connections men can make and enjoy within God’s born again life which are not of faith. We need to make decisions upon the expectation of God’s promises if we want to live by faith. But faith is a challenge to our “want to” and a difficult barrier to penetrate even with God’s grace.
Just as we are not able to reach God on our own, we are not able to live the Christian life on our own. It takes the resurrection power of Jesus in us to be able to live His righteous life. But this we are called to do!
A grace connection is required, yes, but faith is required to move us from a grace connection to God’s culture of grace. It is only by grace we are saved and it is only by grace we can live His life while in this flesh. It is a relationship of grace by faith.
Exercise your grace connection in Christ and test God’s relationship with you. Exploit the culture of Jesus and possess the mind of Christ. Change your grace connection into the full culture of God’s grace. Be who you are in Christ, take possession of your land and increase your boundaries. It is the only way to know the riches in Christ available to you because Jesus became the Son of Man. He knew you before you were born. Now is the time for you to know Him who gave His life for you … before you see Him face to face. Your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life! Find out what that means before you meet your savior face to face, not after!!
You are saved by grace alone but the power of Jesus’ life in your life requires your faith.
In Christ every believer inhales grace with every breath he breaths. Try exhaling faith.
Vic Moran
Rev. a, 09/02/20
FAITH IS THE VICTORY
Encamped along the hills of light,
Ye Christian soldiers, rise
And press the battle ere the night
Shall veil the glowing skies.
Against the foe in vales below
Let all our strength be hurled;
Faith is the victory, we know,
That over comes the world.
On every hand the foe we find Drawn up in dread array;
Let tents of ease be left behind
And onward to the fray.
Salvation’s helmet on each head,
With truth all girt about,
The earth shall tremble ‘neath our tread
And echo with our shout.
His banner over us is love,
Our sword the Word of God;
We tread the road the saints above
With shouts of triumph trod.
By faith they, like a whirlwind’s breath,
Swept on o’er every field;
The faith by which they conquered death
Is still our shining shield.
To him that over comes the foe
White raiment shall be giv’n;
Before the angels he shall know
His name confessed in heav’n.
then onward from the hills of light,
Our hearts with love a flame,
We’ll vanquish all the hosts of night
In Jesus’ conqu’ring name.
Faith is the victory!
Faith is the victory!
O glorious victory
That overcomes the world!
John H. Yates, 1837-1900
[i] 2Peter 3:18.