What Makes God So "GRACEful"?

You see the name “GRACE” on many churches. There is no biblical concept more important than grace. It is so essential that personal salvation is dependent upon it. On this matter the Bible is plain. Salvation is granted to us through grace.

"For by grace are you saved through faith – and that not of yourselves – it is a gift of God – not of works lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Strangely, the subject is one of the least understood of the Bible. And even stranger yet is the fact that the lack of understanding comes primarily because of its simplicity. Some cannot bring themselves to believe that so profound a teaching could be so simple – but it is! Let us look at the concept of GRACE.

There is nothing more certain in the teachings of Paul than that grace and works are in opposite camps to one another.

"If by grace, then it is no more of works – otherwise grace is no more grace. If by works, then it is no more grace – otherwise work is no more work" (Romans 11:6).

The fact is, grace is non-operational when one receives wages for his work. "To him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt" (Romans 4:4).

Grace is a free bestowal of gifts without the recipient so much as lifting his little finger to work for them. Notice this point carefully! This is where the simplicity of the whole concept lies. The fact is that many people cannot bring themselves to believe that salvation comes without some work being accomplished. They will not believe that so great a salvation is awarded to man without him at least doing a little something to attain it. While this may appear reasonable to us humans, the belief is still not true!

An Erroneous Illustration of Grace

There are many people who respect the Bible, but have not yet obtained the spiritual understanding to see how salvation is awarded to us. Many disagree with Paul and say that man must expend certain efforts on his part to obtain salvation. And, remarkably, the people who accept this belief are aware of the scriptures which tell us that salvation comes solely through grace. What they have done is to invent a way of explaining the meaning of "grace" but still require that man exert some effort of his own.

They commonly give an illustration that goes something like this: A rich man owns an expensive watch. He sees a beggar sitting by the roadside. The rich man feels sorry for the unfortunate man. He takes the watch off his wrist and places it on a box in front of the beggar. Then he says, "I freely give you this watch IF you will reach over and take it."

To some Bible believers, this action of the rich man explains the biblical meaning of grace. They reckon the man as representing God, his watch is salvation, and the beggar is looked on as any human that God is dealing with. Notice that the beggar has to do something. He must reach over and pick up the watch. Once he does that limited effort on his part, then the great gift of salvation becomes his. That small amount of personal effort is often reckoned as the man's repentance from his sins and the expressing of his faith in Christ. Once the man does this, then God will give him His great salvation by grace.

This illustration may seem satisfactory on the surface, but it is an utter perversion of the truth! This is NOT biblical grace. That tiny bit of work required of the beggar messes up the whole concept of grace as shown in the Bible.

A True Illustration

Let's make a slight change in the illustration given. We will maintain the same actors and the same circumstances. The rich man again takes off his watch and places it on the box in front of the beggar. But this time he simply tells the beggar that the expensive watch IS HIS TO KEEP. Nothing more is said to the beggar. The transaction is closed. The watch now becomes the property of the beggar, but this time without contingencies. No matter what the man did, or didn't do, the watch was now his. What we have here is grace in action – it is real grace!

Of course, the beggar would no doubt reach over and pick up the watch – after all, it was his. This is what we all do with salvation. It will just not sit there on the box. We choose to accept it. Still, however, Christ has granted us the salvation whether one grasps it now or not.

Let's go one step further to make this latter illustration even more compatible with the meaning of biblical grace. We must now have the beggar hate the rich man. The beggar must also be a thoroughly ungodly person, a wretched sinner, and an active enemy of the rich man. These factors were mentioned by Paul in Romans 5:6-10 as the common relationship that all humans have had with God. Paul further carried on this theme in Ephesians 2:5: "Even when we were dead in sins, [He] has made us alive with Christ – it is by grace you have been saved."

While we humans were in this state of wretchedness, God took off His expensive watch (salvation) and gave it to us. WHEN He gave it we weren't in a condition of repentance towards God or exercising faith in Him, but we were openly ungodly, an active enemy of His, and completely dead in sins. Salvation has been granted to us in spite of our works – not because of them. And God gives it simply because He LOVES us (John 3:16).

Since works do not procure salvation for us, it follows that works cannot take it away. Some teach that Christians must maintain good works in order to hold on to their salvation. This is not what the Bible says. Salvation has been given to us not because of what we do or not do, but because of what someone else did. Christ was the one who worked out a perfect salvation for us. It is His works that have gained for us a salvation and through His abundant grace He gives it to us without contingencies.

None of us has even shown the necessary works that lead to salvation. Who of us has shown a faultless repentance? An immaculate belief in Christ? A spotless faith? If salvation were given on the basis of our own human repentance and faiths, none of us would ever be saved!
Isn't There Something for Us to Do?

Man has always found it hard to believe that salvation comes without God demanding a small degree of personal effort by man. Take faith as an example. We are told that man must surely show his own faith in Christ to be saved. No matter how reasonable this may appear to some, it is not true.

Though it is a wonderful thing for us to have faith (and great rewards can come to us if we properly exercise it), our own faiths cannot save us. Paul said it is the faith of Jesus Christ that justifies us, not our own (Galatians 2:16). And even the faith that we personally have is a gift to us and comes by grace (Ephesians 2:8).

But not only is faith a gift, even our ability to repent is a gift (Acts 11:18). And also the belief we have in Christ is a gift (Philippians 1:29). Even whatever righteous factors imputed to us by God are called "the gifts of righteousness" (Romans 5:17). And even though we may perform good works that seemingly help us to obtain salvation, we are nevertheless told that "it is God who works in you both to will and to do [to be working] of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Yes, Paul says that even the exercise of our own wills in practicing righteousness and the good works that we perform in our Christian walk are an expression of the power of God working within us.

Certainly we should repent (when God persuades within us the will to do so). Certainly we should also believe in Christ (When God persuades it within our intellect). Certainly we should have faith (when God extends that faith to us through grace). But we should also understand that none of these efforts (especially as we believe they are done by our own power) can gain us salvation.

And when God actively persuades people's minds (as He has, does, and will do) to understand the glorious salvation by a new birth in a living union with Jesus Christ that Christ has earned for us (John 6:44,65), then He will also persuade us to repent, to believe, and to have faith – and these are done as a result of our having salvation, not in order to gain it.

It is all a matter of PERSUASION. And God, among His many perfect attributes, is the PERFECT PERSUADER.

Even though God forgives us of our sins by granting us salvation in union with Christ, He continually warns Christians not to do bad works. Such works will cause us to lose rewards (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). Though this is true, the salvation and new birth we have in Christ can never be in jeopardy because it has been granted to us by grace without works. Any good works done by a Christian (Ephesians 2:10) will be rewarded, but they are a recognition of the salvation that we already have, not in order to earn that salvation.

"What shall we say then? Shall we sin, that grace may abound?" (Romans 6:1). God's grace in salvation should never be looked on as an excuse to sin. But still, God effectively counters even the sin in a Christian child of God and its effects through the continual extension of His bountiful grace. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). We are assured that nothing can ever separate us from the love, mercy, and grace which we have in union with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:34-39).

SO WHAT DOES MAKE GOD SO GRACEFUL? God IS love (1 John 4:8,16). And that love is an unconditional love. We human beings are steeped in conditional stuff. "I'll love you if you love me in return." "I'll do this for you if you do that in return." God doesn't look at His relationship to us that way. He created us weak and truly UNABLE to live a right life without Him. All He truly expects of us weak humans is to find out about our inability and recognize Him as the only power and source of true Life.

God will use His powers of persuasion to bring us to dependent understanding.

What Christians need to do is return to a belief in the biblical teaching of grace as it relates to salvation. It shows us that our salvation comes to us as a pure gift. Salvation doesn't depend upon our works – even on our own repentance, belief, or faith. And while it is true that we will be rewarded for the good works that we do or chastised for our bad works, salvation is dependent on neither. Let us not complicate the matter of grace even by the smallest inclusion of works – no matter how spiritual or physical those works may seem. It is Christ's works that count for our salvation.

Let us give Him the glory
for the free salvation which
He grants to all.
"By grace are you saved."

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Thinkers, Feelers and Doers

Which would you rather work with? A really smart person? A really compassionate person? Or a person driven to succeed? You probably would be better off with none of the three. A very smart person, a very intelligent person, is usually governed by his mind. A compassionate person might be under the influence of his emotions. A driven person is using his will to an extreme.

If you were to work with the ideal person, it would be someone who is controlled by his spirit - his spirit in union with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that man is a tripartite being - he is made up of three parts:
spirit, soul and body. The nature of man comes from his spirit. You are what is in your spirit. The soul of man is within the brain of man - it is the intellect, emotions and will. It is the way that God has wired us. Man’s bodily actions are controlled by the soul. I like to say: man IS a spirit, he HAS a soul, and he LIVES in a body.

When we speak of living by the spirit, we are speaking of living by a means not human. We are speaking of something that has to do with divinity and with other realms.

But maybe we should turn the question around. When someone looks at you and they think of working with you, what comes to their mind?

We are told by those who study mankind that, dispositionally, we each fall into three basic categories: the thinkers, the feelers, the doers. This is the soul part of us. God wants us to be controlled, not by our thoughts, or emotions, or will, but by our spirit - in union with Christ.

If you are a Christian, you are in union with Christ, you know! He has come to dwell right there within you, in your human spirit. He wants desperately to be the controlling factor in your life.
And how are you to be controlled by your spirit? To bring you to where you live in that realm - in your spirit - THAT is a project God has underway ever since the moment you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. There is no way that I can describe to you exactly what it means to be led by your spirit or to be governed by the innermost part of your being. I can tell you that it’s quite different from being primarily under the control of your thoughts, or primarily under the control of your emotions, or primarily under the control of your strength of will.

Nor can I tell you exactly how you arrive at living by your spirit. But I can tell you this: IN ORDER FOR THAT DAY TO COME, A LOT OF CHANGES WILL TAKE PLACE IN YOUR LIFE REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU ARE A THINKER, A FEELER, OR A DOER.

The whole purpose of life by a Christian after conversion is a transformation project. Paul said in Romans 12:2 that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. And He said that, as a Christian, we have the mind of Christ. OUR mind is in our soul. CHRIST’S mind is in our spirit. The point is that we are to trust Christ’s mind to direct and guide our mind! As we turn our soul direction over to Christ in more and more areas of living, we GROW spiritually. We are being transformed.

When three newly converted Christians start on the adventure of the Christian life, one being rather emotional, another rather strong in his determination, and the third seeming to carry everything about life in his head, not one of these has an advantage over the other two. The truth of the matter is, each one will have to be taken out of that which is his primary characteristic. Or, to state it clearly, whatever you are, THAT has to be broken.
God isn’t primarily intellect, or emotions, or will - so He favors none of these. Generally speaking, the seminary professors favor one, the charismatic leader favors yet another, and the evangelist who wishes to convert the world yet another.

And how shall God break the will of the evangelist, subdue the emotions of the charismatic, and do goodness knows what to the intellectual? By making available to each of them an abundance of SOUL ENCOUNTERS between the world and their spirit. And also by a great deal of the cross, plunged like a knife at the very center of the soul.

What is God seeking to deal with in you? If you are a thinker, that is what He will be going after. If you are a feeler, He will be seeking to balance that. If you are a doer strong in volition, He will be out to break the strength of your will. What will He do? Make the emotional person intellectual, and the intellectual person an emotional person? No. God will be seeking to weave something else into you that is characterized not primarily by either a keen mind, deep feelings or a strong will. He will be seeking to introduce into you the characteristics of a LIFE that comes from another realm. That LIFE, in the Person of Christ, is not more (or less) mindy, more (or less) emotional, more (or less) willful than fallen man. Christ is just a little bit different from the thinker, the feeler or the doer.

In the transformation of that part of us which is so very human by that which is so divine, I do not mean to leave the impression that you will one day become some sort of human vegetable. Not at all. The emotions are still there, the intellect is still there and the will is still there. Thinkers, feelers and doers are changed, not eliminated. These elements in their lives will become servants of another life, the divine Life of Jesus Christ, in the innermost man.
So, I recommend that (1) you have a lot of encounters with Christ and (2) you prepare for an onslaught of encounters with the world.

There is a strong human element in the soul of each of us. Yes, all of us. We have been wired by God with particular tendencies and then, in our day to day living, have had those tendencies reinforced in ungodly ways by the world. Some portion of the earthen part of each Christian needs its energies and abilities and understandings transformed to something higher. Before that higher point arrives, the soul may go through some rough days.

Do not fall into the trap of trying to suppress your soul - or personally hauling it to the cross, there to scrounge around for a hammer and some nails. Christ Himself needs no help. You will only get in His way. Besides, I don’ t think I would be too wide of the mark to say to you that His higher purpose in you is not so much to make your soul weak as it is to make your soul understand the strength of your spirit!

Somewhere deep down within you, everything that Christ has ever gone through is already deposited in you. Some of that which is His experience He desires that you also experience. He has a yoke to place around your neck. It is an easy yoke - that is a guarantee - because He has already gained the strength to bear that yoke.

Some of His experience has to do with sufferings, but you will never know suffering to the extent that He did. Your encounters with the world, the flesh and the devil will make up only a very small part of the likes of His suffering. YET, YOU ARE THE RECIPIENT OF ALL THE STRENGTH HE WON IN HIS SUFFERINGS. Granted, that strength may never seem to arrive at the most needy moment. But that is what transformation is all about. Paul said that we would never be tested beyond our ability to overcome the test.

You have within your innermost being, right now, the divine life of God. You also have within your being - a little closer to the surface - the human life of your soul given to you by your mother and father. The life they gave you was fallen life. The soul life they gave you made you primarily a thinker, or primarily a feeler, or primarily a doer. Their genes wired you this way. GOD wired you this way. And that’s good! But the adventure of transformation is trusting Christ to USE those “primarilies”! God needs thinkers to manifest His thoughts to the world. God needs feelers to show His compassion to the world. God needs doers to reach out and get the job done.

With all the leftover garbage of the world implanted in our brain cells, the human soul life and that other divine life cannot always live inside you in total harmony. After all, the two are vastly different life forms.

There are times when your human soul life easily relates to that divine life. At still other times your soul is neutral to the divine life. Unfortunately, but true, at other times - wittingly or unwittingly -your human soul life moves in the opposite direction of that higher life.
The intellect, the emotions and the will are God-wired and each has an important function in human activity. But we are made to be dependent Christians - people who rely on and trust in Christ to direct the functions of the soul. And the way it turns out is that we tend to be most INDEPENDENT in whichever of the three functions we are most strongly wired. A thinker most often trusts his own thoughts. A feeler most often trusts his own emotions. A doer most often depends on himself to get the job done.

And therein lies the problem of the transformation of the soul. Whenever we slip into independent activity of the soul, God uses the opportunity for our correction. We are shown that independence does not work. We are driven to a greater understanding and acceptance of trust in and guidance by Christ from our spirit.

As we grow spiritually by trusting more arid more in our spirit and less and less in our own ability, then Jesus can really begin to USE our soul as it has been wired. The thinker who accepts Christ’s thoughts can then have his emotions and his will brought up to proper levels by Christ. The feeler who allows Christ to control and direct his emotions can then have his thought processes and his will brought up to speed. The doer who trusts Christ to give him the power to achieve can then have his understanding and emotions brought up to aid in his activity.

We will still be strongest in the area of the soul in which we were most strongly wired, but the other two functions will be more useful than before. Each Christian will be uniquely equipped to manifest Jesus Christ to his world in the best way.

Ah, take heart, whatever you are: thinker, feeler or doer. Know that we serve a Lord who loves us enough to go after every trait the soul can display.

When you see how needful all of us are of being changed, how blind and incapable we all are of doing the changing for ourselves, then you are only a short walk over to the place where you can see that every trouble and trial that comes into your life is used by the hand of God to accomplish the highest possible good in your life.

But you will need all the wisdom of your spirit in Christ, all the experience which life has given you to date, plus an awful lot of waiting before God to understand how to be a vessel of Christ to your world.

Somehow, in God’ s business of transformation, there has to come a place where virtually nothing done to you, regardless of how unjust it is, can (1) change your Christ-centered thoughts (2) hurt your Christ-controlled feelings or (3) sway your Christ-determined will.

Transformation involves our soul becoming the image of our spirit. It is the two looking so much alike that they are almost indistinguishable. Your spirit was reborn into the image of God in Christ at conversion. Your spirit is finished and complete. Transformation of the soul is the making of the human part of you into the image of the deity part of you. Not just Jesus Christ IN you, but Jesus Christ AS you to your world.

I would sum up transformation with two basic realities:
(1) The most outstanding characteristic of the fallen soul is independence. And independence has an almost limitless capacity to survive.
(2) The most outstanding characteristic of God is love. And God, through Christ, is the only power in the universe MORE determined to transform you than your independence is to survive.
THE CLASH OF THOSE TWO CHARACTERISTICS IS OFTEN QUITE A SPECTACULAR EVENT TO BEHOLD!

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Is Becoming a Better Person the Goal of Christianity?

You may hear that the goal of Christianity is to become better people and in turn make the world a better place. Is this GOD’S goal for Christianity?

Christianity is more than a checklist of rules that help to make us and others better. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not primarily about morality. The gospel is not a self-help program. It is not a formula. It is not a careful regimen of popping religious pills to make us better, nor does it consist of religious programs that will give us more purpose, or following religious prescriptions that will help us avoid sin. Christianity is not one and the same as being moral.

Some who seem like the most moral people alive today are not Christians. Moral people may or may not be Christians. Christians become more moral, no doubt about that, but morality is not the goal and it is not the answer. The answer and the goal is living the Life of Jesus Christ within us. That’s it. Jesus. Jesus produces morality in Christians, but morality alone does not produce Jesus. Building character may change what we do, but it does not change who we are. Jesus alone in us makes us who we are. Jesus alone in us makes us children in God’s Family which, dear readers, IS THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANITY.

Jesus alone can change us from the inside out. He alone makes us into new men and women, because He lives His resurrected Life in us.

If morality alone is the goal of Christianity, then Jesus is completely unnecessary for moral growth. If we are expected to and can fix our own problems, then who needs Jesus? If we believe that God expects us and that we are able to produce enough goodness to turn our world around, then knowing Jesus, accepting Him, believing and trusting in Him, are irrelevant. The problem with proposing morality as the primary religious answer and goal is that Jesus is reduced to an afterthought, a religious ornament, a nice piece of religious furniture that we look at and admire but that has not practical value.

The gospel is not a program or club that we join so that we can help change the world. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a matter of us looking at how wrong other people are and devising programs so that those people can qualify to become like us. Religious, special, better-than-everybody-else societies are not the answer. Religious formulas, programs, and initiative are not the answer. Jesus alone is the answer.

I make a critical distinction in the definition of the word religion. I define religion as any belief system or methodology that promises God’s love and blessings in return for human effort and performance. This definition is a sub-definition of the commonly used definitions for religion, which are: 1) serving and worshipping God; 2) commitment to or devotion to faith, as in attending church; 3) institutionalized attitudes, beliefs, and regulations.

Under these generally accepted definitions in our society and culture, Christianity is a religion. However, when it comes to biblical Christianity, and the precise examples and teachings we are given in the New Testament, religion cannot apply to Christ-centered and grace-based faith. In fact, religion then becomes the very opposite of authentic Christianity.

I said earlier that God having children in His Family is the goal of Christianity. And becoming that child in His Family is a one-time choice that we must make. And we make that choice, not on the basis of the good things we have done or the bad things we have not done, but rather on the choice that God has made to accept our choice no matter what state of morality we find ourselves in. This is called grace – unmerited favor and acceptance.

In so many things in life, we “put the cart before the horse”. We try to accomplish things before we have the power to do them. And Christianity is no exception. Many Christians attempt morality before they understand the power that it takes. And when they inevitably fail, they get discouraged and frustrated.

The “cart” of morality MUST be powered by the “horse” of Jesus Christ. And God enables this power by the greatest miracle in the world – He places Christ to dwell right within us in a living union of His Spirit to our human spirit. This miracle occurs at the moment we choose to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of our life.

The Bible says that building a Family of beings “in Christ” is the goal of Christianity. God’s children in Christ are the goal of Christianity.

Becoming a better person is the RESULT of Christianity. Some progress into this better person rapidly, others very slowly. But it is the process that counts, it is the gradual growth as His child that God cares about. And with Jesus Christ living in us, we are guaranteed to become a better person.

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Redemption

The movie Shawshank Redemption (first released in 1994) is still available at Blockbuster and on cable. In some ways I hate to mention a positive example from a movie, because someone will surely take offense and mention some “bad part” of that movie and “question my conversion” for having even watched the movie, and beyond that, for feeling that it had some redeeming feature! We humans love to jump on anything that will make us feel at least somewhat superior, and of course one sure way of feeling superior is to condemn someone else. Actually, the toxic pattern of judgment and condemnation, often encouraged by self-righteous, holier-than-thou religion, is why the message of Shawshank Redemption is so uplifting.

In biblical terms, the word redemption is usually used to mean saving up from the punishment for our sins. But there is another kind of redemption – it is saving us from the institutionalized forms of legalistic religion.

Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, is the central character in the story. Andy, a vice-president of a bank, was wrongly convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover, and is the one truly innocent person in Shawshank prison. He becomes friends with Red, played by Morgan Freeman, who is the only prisoner who actually admits being guilty.

Promotional copy and posters for the movie proclaim the liberating power of hope and the biblical themes of freedom and resurrection with the words, “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.” While Andy is challenged by and must deal with all of the cruelty and inhumanity of prison life, nothing stops him from eventually finding a way to escape.

When Andy first arrives at Shawshank to begin two consecutive life terms for murders he did not commit, he meets the self-righteous, Bible carrying Warden. The Warden serves as a stereotype of the kind of person or institution who attempts to inflict a twisted version of Christianity on others, through fear and intimidation. The Warden holds Andy, innocent of the crime for which he has been convicted, captive through condemnation. Yes, the Warden is a picture of hypocritical people and religious institutions that attempt to control us in the name of their own greed, avarice and lust.

Andy, the intelligent ex-banker, soon determines that he can further his escape by appealing to the greed of prison guards and the Warden himself. He offers to help prison officials as a financial planner, and succeeds in saving them money. In return Andy is given a job assisting Brooks, who has been the prison librarian for 37 years. Andy sets up an office in the library, doing tax returns for the Warden and all of the Shawshank prison guards. As the end of Brooks’ sentence nears, Brooks is desperate to remain within the security of the only world he knows – prison – but he is released anyway. The voice-over of Red, played by Morgan Freeman, who serves as the film’s narrator, explains:
He’s just institutionalized…the man’s been in here fifty years. This is all he knows…these walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em. Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on ‘em. That’s “institutionalized”…they send you here for life and that’s exactly what they take…

Brooks is released, but he is lonely, afraid, unable to cope – disoriented outside of a regimented world that tells him exactly what to do and when to do it. Brooks serves as an example of so many who are so abused by religion that when they are offered freedom in Christ they refuse it – choosing instead to remain comfortable and assured that they are doing all of the right things and that the institution will take care of them. Finally Brooks can’t take it anymore, and he hangs himself in the dingy room he has rented.

Through careful planning, Andy is finally able to escape crawling the last 500 yards through raw sewage in a sewer conduit to his freedom. In perhaps the most well-known single image from the movie, Andy stands in a driving rain in the river into which the prison sewer empties. He tears off his prison shirt and extends his arms upward to heaven – victorious and liberated as the rain washes down on him from heaven, cleansing him and giving his new life.

Through meticulous planning Andy is able to leave funds for Red to join him in Mexico. Shawshank Redemption ends as the camera pans across the Pacific, then dissolves to a scene of Red walking barefoot on the sand toward an old wreck of a boat. Andy is carefully sanding the boat, and then the camera shows us that Andy recognizes his friend walking toward him. As Andy jumps up to run and greet Red the camera pulls back, showing the broad expanse of the beach and ocean, with the horizon showing no walls, no iron bars, no guards, no hypocritical, condemning Warden. Andy and Red are redeemed and reconciled with the precious gift of their freedom.

Shawshank Redemption, of course, is not the gospel. It does not point us directly to Christ, but it does make us acutely aware of our human dilemma. Andy was able to escape the harsh bondage to which he had been unjustly sentenced by wits and cunning. Red did his time and was finally released. Brooks was also released, but he had become so institutionalized that he could not function in freedom.

All of the “religions” of the world except true Christianity call for a form of institutional legalism. And even within Christianity there is a form of institutional legalism – follow the rules and you can please God enough to let you into heaven.

For most Christians, there are actually two redemptions: first, the redemption from sin by the grace, the unmerited favor, of God through the Cross of Christ, and second, the redemption from legalism and the concept of earning heaven. We must come to see that the Christian life after conversion is also totally by the grace of God.

There are millions of people who find themselves in religious captivity. Some are like Brooks, the prison librarian, who grew comfortable with rituals, regulations, restrictions and routines. Others are like Andy and Red, looking for a way out. They all need our prayers. They need people who have been in spiritual bondage to help show them the way out. They need, more than anything, to know Jesus, the architect of our spiritual redemption at our new birth in Christ, and also the architect of our redemption from legalism because He lives in us to direct us and give us His freedom in one command:
A NEW Commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you…by this shall all men know that you are my disciples (John 13:34-35).

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The Two Pillars of Paul's Gospel of Grace

Many believers see only one gospel in the New Testament. Such understanding has caused them to miss out on the most important truth God has ever presented in the Word. There are gospels in the New Testament where believers combine law and grace, if you have a mind to so interpret. 1. There is a Judaistic gospel which combines the Old Testament rituals with the laws that Jesus of Nazareth laid out. This is still widely practiced today. 2. There is a Pentecostal gospel that combines self-effort with self-works, mostly to get more faith and more power or more blessings. This also is widely practiced today.

Then there is the final gospel of grace given to Paul, which he calls “my gospel”. This is the most needed gospel today. However you may want to look at it, the New Testament has several groups of people that followed Christ, to some extent, who interpreted their religious worship according to their own desires.

While all Scriptures are for us as born-again believers, not all Scripture is TO us. The greatest growth of Christians today is for them to find out who they are in Christ and grow in that knowledge.

Look at the day of Pentecost. On that day, the Holy Spirit came to fulfill one great desire of the Father. John 14:20 plainly says that on that day the believers were to know that Jesus was in the Father and they were in Christ. Sadly, that day came and went and not many present received the message that Jesus said they would come to know. What were they to know? That they had received the Holy Spirit? No! They could have known that Christ was in them. It is here that the great religious confusion began. Those believers accepted the Holy Spirit and thought He was Christ, and to this day that error has continued.

Today many Christians are told they need the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the receiving of it would constitute the finality of God in them. The problem is that the Holy Spirit is not Christ and Christ is not the Holy Spirit. Receiving the Holy Spirit is receiving the one that will reveal to the believer that Christ is in them (John 14:26; 16:13). You see, the Christ that is in believers came by a birthing when they accepted Christ as Savior. Also, the Holy Spirit came at the same time. In fact, the whole supply of God’s Life was dumped on the believing sinner the moment they accepted Christ. There was no more that God could give the sinner because it was not the believing sinner that was the reason for their salvation, but it was the Cross of Christ that made it all possible. Sinners are never saved on any merit of their own; they are saved by grace, which is Christ’s finished work at the Cross. Even though the believers in the early Pentecostal church had Christ in them, they would not know it until years later. Mixing the Scriptures would continue until the final gospel was given to Paul. That time came when the gospels that were preached in the early church – gospels all mixed with Judaism – would be set aside; and a new gospel, the gospel of grace, would now go to the Gentiles. Of course, Jewish people could be saved and become children of God just like Gentiles, but they would no longer be Jews (Col. 3:10-11).

The difference with Paul’s gospel (Rom. 16:25) is its teaching of God birthing His own children. Now that the Father had temporarily set Israel aside, He could move into His original plan. You see, Israel was God’s earthly people, a created people. They were not children of God; they were children of Abraham, of Israel, created by God but not birthed by God. There is a great difference between the two. God’s created people, Israel, belong to the earth and everything about them concerns earthly blessings. But God’s birthed children have eternal, heavenly blessings. They are a different group of people and consequently have a different gospel.

This plan was not new. It goes back to before the earth was created. It is God’s original plan. It is plainly declared in Ephesians 1:4; there God chose the human race to be in Christ, not just a few, but all of God‘s created humans were chosen to be in Christ. The word chosen in this verse has almost obliterated the true meaning of the verse because many have thought the word was dealing with predestination. The fact is when God created humans they were left incomplete and could only be completed humans by Christ in them (Col. 2:10). This is why Jesus of Nazareth said you must be born again. Ephesians 1:4 goes on to say that believers who have Christ in them stand before God as holy, without blame, and in love. This was the way God originally planned for humanity to live; but before Christ’s Cross, there was no way God could change humanity with its free-will choices. So when Christ died, all humanity died (Rom. 6:3-4).

Through the birthing, (being “born again”), the Father would place Christ in the believer and the believer in Christ, just as you are in the air and the air is in you. God never intended humanity to live their own lives; He intended that the life we live would be the Life of Christ.

THIS IS THE FIRST PILLAR OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE: WE ARE IN CHRIST AND CHRIST IS IN US. It is upon this new creation Life in the human that there would be a new and final gospel given.

If Christ was to be the Life of the believing human, then a whole different plan would be needed. THE SECOND PILLAR OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE WAS THE CROSS AND JESUS’ DEATH.

The two pillars in God’s plan, devised before the foundation of the earth was laid, are that the human was to be completed in Christ (Eph. 1:4) and the Lamb was slain, in God’s mind, before the earth was created (1 Peter 1:19-20). These two pillars hold up the entirety of Paul’s final gospel of grace. They are the two truths that make the grace of God the essence of the final gospel.

What about this newborn babe in Christ? It is the same as a newborn human baby. The baby has nothing to do with anything concerning its birthing. Christ in the believer is totally an act of God. The human being has no knowledge of what God is doing in simple salvation. Christ birthed in a human is not some ecstatic and spectacular physical event. But it is the beginning of a new Life for the believer. It will be a continuous event nothing less than a permanent personal union with the living Christ. This is best described in Galatians 2:20. Sadly, today many Christians have missed this new creation Life. They have it, but do not know it.

I think of Paul who is the first one chosen to receive this final gospel of grace. At the time Jesus was giving him this grace gospel, there was a rampant argument going on between various religionists of the day over the subject of law and Judaism. He answered the argument plainly in his epistle to the Galatians. He boldly maintained that the law was abolished at the Cross (Col. 2:14; Eph. 2:15). This introduced a new understanding of the plan of God. The law concerning humans was nailed to the Cross and died, but the need of humans to be lawful would still remain. But it was already proven that humans, within themselves, can never keep the law. So where is the answer? It is Christ IN US. Christ is the only perfect keeper of the law; and as He becomes the Life of the believer, He stands before God as us. The prime objective of the Christian life is that believers learn this first pillar of Christ in them.

Because of this prime objective, it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the death of Christ on the Cross in the gospel Christ gave to Paul. It is the second and other supporting pillar to be found in the gospel of grace. When Christ began to reveal to Paul the essence of the final gospel, it became clear to Paul that everything for humanity hinges on the Cross (1 Cor. 2:2). The Cross is where God’s righteousness meets humanity’s sin. God’s plan of placing Christ in the human will not work unless there is something done radically to the human. What to do with the human’s sin, their background, their lack of need and desire for God is the big question. So the second pillar of Paul’s message becomes absolute. The in-Christ truth cannot and will not work without the Cross.

Strangely, the message of the Cross didn’t strike the other preachers of Paul’s day, including the apostles, as importantly as it did to Paul. The answer to this could be that those in the early church could still well remember the words Jesus of Nazareth gave specifically to Israel, which was still being offered the Messianic kingdom in the book of Acts.

What specifically does the Cross do, other than offering up Jesus as our sacrifice for sin? It’s like this. If God is going to put Christ in humans, He must do something to make them palatable and worthy to the new Life. His grace will not allow Him to kill the human and start all over again with a new human. So His plan calls for Jesus to have our sins and transgressions placed in His body (1 Peter 2:24). Humans did not die; they did not go to the Cross personally; they shed no blood, but God’s perfect plan was for them to die in Christ. But by being in Christ at the Cross, every sinner has his sin and past taken care of judicially as Christ pays the price of redemption for them and as them. In Christ, the believer is crucified with Christ; he is buried with Christ; he is resurrected with Christ; and he is seated with Christ in heavenly places.

All of these events have taken place in every person who has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. But the shame of Christianity is that many believers don’t know or understand how they can be affected by these works that God has performed in every believing sinner. It is obvious that any believer who does not understand the gospel Jesus gave to Paul can never come to the full realization of who they are in Christ. To not know who you are in Christ is like trying to drive a car that has no engine in it. The engine of the born-again believer is Christ!

As a final admonition, I encourage you to study Paul’s epistles in the light of the fact that two pillars uphold Paul’s gospel, the gospel of grace. Look carefully into Paul’s words in Colossians chapter 3.

Verse 1: “If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sits on the right hand of God.” Here is your position in Christ. You are not an earthling; you are a whole new creation in Christ.

Verse 4: “When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory.” It does not say, as many say, that if you are good, you’ll become Christ-like. Christ IN YOU NOW is your LIFE.

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You Are Internally Wired In Your Genes With the "Will of God"

"…Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…"

Ask most any Christian what he wants to do with his life and the most likely response is that he wants the will of God to be done. Whatever God wants is the Christian desire.

I spent many years of my Christian life searching and waiting for a "will of God" that was outside of me. My eyes were always on the future, waiting for a mysterious will to happen. BUT, AS CHRISTIANS, THE WILL OF GOD IS BUILT-IN RIGHT WITHIN US! When you think it through, you realize that this concept fits the Scripture a lot better than what many believe. Let me explain further what I mean.

God has made us marvelous individuals:
"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous – and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your Book!"
(Psalm 139:13-16 Living Bible)

When it speaks of us being knitted together before our bodies were formed and all our days being written in His Book, I believe it is making reference to our genes, the basic personality that we were wired with by God through our parents.

Think of it! God made you who you are in your likes and dislikes, your talents and inner desires. The fact that you enjoy fishing or get excited at the prospect of building your own house, and the fact that I enjoy sports and have a desire to create with words, were all there before we were born.

Then sin came along and so distorted man that frequently the desires are warped and the person turned inward as a self-willing self.

But in the salvation that is in Christ, not only does His blood cleanse from sin, but by His Spirit He comes to live within us. He lives within YOU – your personality, your natural talents and all that you enjoy. He doesn't come in to make us into someone we don't enjoy being! He unites Himself with the personality you have basically been wired with and expresses Himself through our desires.

Every Christian is a unique expression of Christ; the uniqueness of Christ expressed through the uniqueness of me.

I know this sound almost too good to be true. Most of us think of God's will as that which is going to block our desires, not fulfill them. But remember that if you: "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the DESIRES OF YOUR HEART" (Psalm 37:4).

So often, you will hear Christians speak of their childhood dreams and ambitions in negative terms, as something to be given up and rejected. Those dreams were an expression of the you He made. They were not to be rejected, but CLEANSED AND LIVED IN BY TRUSTING IN CHRIST. Through THEM Christ would live out His purpose.

Do you remember Philippians 2:12, "For it is God who works in you to will and to do of His good pleasure"? The only way I can make sense of that scripture is by understanding that my will and desire are one with His, and He now wills His will in my will.

But certainly, anything a person wants to do could not be God's will. But the fact is that God put the "wants" in us at our conception, and then cleansed and redeemed them in Christ. GOD HAS WRITTEN HIS WILL INTO OUR GENES FROM BIRTH AND MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO FULFILL THEIR HIGHEST POTENTIAL IN UNION WITH CHRIST.

Think of it this way. There are probably two motives among Christian missionaries in Africa. One group sees no sacrifice in leaving the U.S. to go into the jungle and build their homes – they were wired and cut out for that kind of life. When Christ came to live within them, He willed His will through their basic desires. These missionaries love every moment of what they are doing. The only sacrifice is when the mission board insists that they return to the U.S. for a speaking tour.

But other missionaries are wired differently. In spite of their built-in desires, they decide that, to please God, they will go to Africa. They complain of the heat and conditions and always look back to the job they left in the States. They are in Africa because they thought that was the most spiritual thing they could do FOR God.

It is interesting to read the book of Proverbs and compare the wise man and the fool (the term "fool" means lack of moral sense, not mental lack). The fool is always likened to the lazy man or sluggard. You will soon see that the world is full of lazy fools who never get to the purpose for which they were made and wired. Unfortunately, Many Christians use different terminology but have much the same attitude to life as the world.

We live in the age of the TV game shows where our children watch wealth and possessions fall into one's lap by chance. They walk out into life dreaming of the ultimate show host handing them a check containing all their wishes and dreams come true.

The age also contains "gambling fever" – wager your possessions to hit the big jackpot – ignore your God-wired desires for a genuine life and look for the fun and excitement of a dream life. This is a generation of dreamers whose life is a fantasy of tomorrow.

Many Christians are the same, because they wait for the elusive will of God to be made known. They constantly wait for "what God will do some day". This way of thinking produces crippled Christians. They have little because they never set out to really use the talents and desires God wired them with. And so, rather than using their abilities FOR others, they lean ON others as they dream of the day they will someday have.

"The sluggard is full of excuses: 'I can't go to work!' he says. 'If I go outside I might meet a lion in the street and be killed!'" (Prov. 22:13). This gives a vivid picture of a man in mental and spiritual inertia, paralyzed because he has no purpose and therefore no reason to be doing what he is doing.

Let me ask you – where are you going in life? If you don't know or aren't following your God-wired desires, you are drifting dangerously near the fool of Proverbs. You are wasting the unique life that God gave you in which to celebrate Himself. What have you always wanted to be and do?

What urges have risen within you SINCE your new birth? Think about it, and realize that within those dreams is God's purpose for your life. Don't be led astray by that prayer meeting you go to where they are praying to find God's will like a mysterious bolt out of the blue. That may actually be leading you away from the purpose of God that is already built in within you. Don't let a pseudo-super spirituality lead you from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Let me give you some practical instruction as to how you can exit the world of dreaming fools and become a wise man.

First, get some time alone, maybe a walk in the woods, a day on the beach, or whatever, away from all distraction. Listen to who Christ is in you. In doing this, it will be helpful, for that day at least, to forget the expression "the will of God". In fact, stop thinking about what God wants because that leaves you dreaming and waiting for a revelation. Remember, He is ONE with you; so you are listening to the desires He has placed in you from birth, now cleansed and made His own in new birth. Ask yourself, "What do I (in your genes) want to do? Where am I (in your genes) going in life?" After a while, the purpose wired within your genes will be sorted out from all the foggy wishes and dreams that clutter up your mind.

In doing this, do not be phony! Some Christians would come back from such a retreat saying that they want to enter some form of full time ministry. Do you really? Realize that all born-again Christians are priests (1 Peter 2), which means that whatever we do in life we are doing it unto God, a MINISTRY for His glory.

He expresses Himself through our basically wired desires, whether that is by a housewife and mother, businessman, accountant, dentist, sailor, farmer, fireman, secretary, professor or whatever. Whatever is your true heart's desire, God is saying that is THE particular world He wills to express Himself in, through you.

We are made in God's image. We see in Genesis and onward through the Bible that His wisdom called on His Almightiness to bring to pass what He had purposed. We function at a finite level in exactly the same way. You must know by how you are wired where you are going in life, then go and bring it to pass.

Formulate your purpose in life by opening yourself to the mind of Christ, by nakedly and honestly avoiding all religious terminology that keeps you from the truth of how you are wired. You now call upon who you are to implement that. Remember, Jesus Christ lives in you, strength of your weakness, and you are going to draw upon His ability to carry out your built-in desires.

God did not keep His purpose locked up inside Himself. As each step was to be accomplished, He announced it. God created the world and each day announced to Himself what was going to be that day. He then announced to Adam and Eve what He was going to do in terms of the salvation of man. He did this with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and each generation that followed. We call it prophecy. But it was really God announcing to Himself and those it involved the next step to be taken in bringing about His purpose.

Similarly with us. We set out to put the purpose into practice. We then ask ourselves what is to be done this year, this month, in order to bring our life's purpose to pass. Sit down every week and ask of yourself what must be done during this week, and finally bring it down to what must be accomplished this day.

In setting out our wired purpose clearly and going out to achieve it, our built-in desires are fanned into a furnace. The simple commitment of ourselves to do it will release untold energies in Christ that will bring it to pass. WE WILL NOW BE FLOWING IN HARMONY WITH OUR GENES IN UNION WITH LIFE HIMSELF. People will come into our lives to help us on our way. Opportunities will present themselves, resources will become available to us. Creative ideas arrive in our head out of nowhere that bring us continually closer to the fulfilling of the purpose.

In all our doing, we REST in the fact that God is at work in us and using us the way He made and wired us. And we are resting in the fact that He is our ability.

For the Christian FOLLOWING HIS GENES, every detail of life becomes exciting. An inner dynamic energy, not present in the dreamer, fills his mind and body.

Our English word "enthusiasm" is made up of two Greek words, en theos, which mean God in us. The wise man who follows his desire and God-given wired-in purpose lives his life with ENTHUSIASM – with trust in the power of God through Christ within.

Harness your genes to a purpose.
Grab on to your built-in desires.
Then trust in Christ within.
And you will celebrate life!

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