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Part 2
Part 3
9. Grace.
So in the last post I left you with a question on what changed my relationship with God. In a good way, that is.
And I bet most of you got it right.
It is Grace.
Ce Joan was the one who first spoke to me about grace. (previously I wrote 'thought' instead of 'spoke to', but then I changed my mind. The revelation of grace, or anything of what God is, needs to be done by the Holy Spirit. You can't teach someone on what God is like. He has to reveal it by Himself) And I'm glad she did. The revelation of grace changed my life.
What is grace? It is God's unmerited favor. When you receive something you do not deserve, that's grace.
When you work in a company, you get paid. That's not grace, you earned your payment. But if one day your boss decides to give you a ferrari out of the blue, now that's grace. You did nothing to earn the ferrari. What you deserve is your salary, not the ferrari. The ferrari is simply out of your boss' kindness, out of his grace.
And that's everything about my (our, supposedly) life now!
Salvation is grace. You did not earn your salvation. No amount of good work can reserve you a spot in heaven. God's standard is, if you fail to fulfill just one speck of His law, you've failed all of them. No tolerance. That's how just and perfect His law is.
If you are in your right mind, you should know that we all fail. No matter how much money you give to the charity, no matter how much time and energy you spend on social work, travelling the world to spread the gospel.. Just one lie, one anger, one complaint, one gossip, one lustful thought, one hatred, and all your good works just crumbles down in the sight of God. Just like that.
Now, the only Person who has the capacity to perfectly fulfill the law was God Himself. Duh, He was the One who made it. So He came down to the earth He created in the form of Jesus Christ. God in human flesh. Fully God, fully man. So basically He fulfilled the law flawlessly, leaving God the Father delightfully satisfied.
You see, according to the law, you need to have an animal sacrifice made to God to cover your sin.
Hebrews 9:22b says: "For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness."
If you read the book of Leviticus, you can see all the criteria of an animal sacrifice. The animal HAS to be spotless (which by the way represents Jesus).
So, how the sacrifice works is the animal will die for your sin. Your sin will be transferred to the animal by some head touching ritual involving the priest, and the 'righteousness' of the spotless animal will be transferred to you. That's how the blood of the animal covers your sin. And I'm not just crap talking, it's all in the Bible. Go read Leviticus 4, and basically the rest of Leviticus for more types of offerings.
So why aren't we doing it anymore now? Because, when Jesus died, He was the perfect offering. The blood of imperfect animals isn't able to remove your sin, it can only cover it for so long. But Jesus' blood is perfect. He's the perfect offering, therefore He only need to die once, and that is it. No more excess blood is needed.
And the way to salvation, is through Him alone. It isn't Jesus plus good works, or Jesus plus fasting, or Jesus plus diligent praying.. Salvation is Jesus, period. It doesn't depend on you, it depends on Him and His perfection and His finished work.
Now think about this. If your salvation doesn't depend on you and your good work, what makes you think that any of your bad works could make you lose it?
This completely set me free. Gone are the days of worrying that I might still go to hell. And that completely changed my relationship with God! Instead of being scared of His wrath, I became aware of His love. And living life knowing that you are unconditionally loved is the best way to live, man.
Reading stuff like this, people will come up with ideas that grace is licence to sin. Lets be real. With or without grace, you will still sin. So what difference does a 'licence' make? Sin is wrong. But knowing that when I sin, God still loves me and that I will still go to heaven changes everything.
Having been loved like that, I don't want to sin. I don't want to sin not because I'm trying to earn points with God so He would give me a pass to heaven, but because I love Jesus and I don't want to make Him sad. But of course I still fail here and there lah. My point here: if you're not completely sure that all your sins are forgiven, you can't be completely be assured that God loves you, and therefore, hinders you from being able to love Him back effortlessly.
And grace doesn't mean then that good works are irrelevant. It still is! But the difference is, you bless others because you know you are already blessed, not to earn blessing, or salvation. If you know how blessed you are, you can't help but bless others. If you know how loved you are, you can't help but love others. And these type of effortless "good works", IMO is the best.
That alone changed my take on Christianity. I can't pin point exactly when my walk with God started to change, but after some time, I realized I was no longer dragging anything. Life became so light, and walking with God became so natural.
Of course there were still days where I felt hungry. But that's it, hungry. Not dry. Sometimes our relationship still can get a little flat. But it was different from the pre-grace days. Though flat, but in the back of my head, somewhere deep in my heart, I know He's still madly in love with me. That revelation is default. It's just that sometimes I was distracted, or not eating enough of His word.
Not once in these 3 years after I known grace that my walk was ever dry. Flat, but never dry. Never crying to The Lord wondering where He went, or what went wrong.. He's always near, and no matter what went wrong, again, it doesn't depend on me anymore. He will always be here :)
And grace doesn't stop at salvation. It continues on. I'm living a ife showered with God's grace all the time. I've received blessings I know I don't deserve. I can go on and on about it, as well as my fellas who also knows they are under grace. I've been hearing testimonies over testimonies of how amazing God's grace is in their lives.. Grace has and will always be there. It's just the matter of you knowing it or not, you having a revelation about it.
Lately, I've been hearing a lot of grace testimonies about job searching. It comes non stop! And the most recent: FA Project. We are all blown away. When we need more people, they came overflowingly. When we need food, suddenly it's there. When we need participation from the kids, we got the best audience ever. They are amazing. God is amazing.
So, to give you a foundation to hold on to, here are some bible verses that helped me see grace when I was off focus.
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8
So yeah. I have an awesome walk with God, and it has never been boring.
Why is grace so important? Cos Jesus was full of grace. He embodied grace. He is grace. Same goes, He is love. He is wisdom. He is healing. He is provision. He IS!
And so this is my story. It is personal, nothing set on stone.
Please don't take this story and make it a formula for having a closer relationship with God. A walk with God has no formulas. He is personal. Ask for your own, and it will be awesome!
So, enjoy your day (or night) people!
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