The Grace of God - Can It Be Balanced?

In my writings, I have been challenged by some people to be more balanced in my presentation of the gospel. This always bothered me – that others did not see the most important thing in the message I was bringing. I felt that the heart-truth of the message should be highlighted in every way I possibly could. To take any God-truth, taken directly from the Scriptures, and attempt to balance it with anything else, is to take the power out of the truth.

This, however, is common in many of today’s Christian ministries. Most of the time when people want a ministry to be balanced, they do not like some part of what the ministry is saying and want to balance what is preached with what they believe. To do this is to water down truth and make it something organized by man.

The Bible says Christ is the truth. This cannot be balanced. He is truth or he is not truth. The idea cannot be balanced, nor should it be.

Many direct statements from the apostle Paul show that he never made an attempt to balance Christ with anything or anyone else. One of the clearest statements Paul makes showing this is in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2. Here his bold declaration is to know nothing else other than Christ crucified. Then in 1 Corinthians 1:23, he says those who do not understand Christ as the truth, such as Jews and Greeks, are as stumbling blocks and are the foolish.

The truth of the New Testament is to always purely and boldly present Christ as the Father’s only intended life for humans. God never intended for humans to maintain a natural life, a religious life or a sinful life. The reason Christ died on the cross was that humans needed another life. God saw that trying to clean up the old Adamic life would never work. A new kind of life for the human race was needed. Christ made this possible on the cross, and Paul’s message explained how it works (Galatians 2:20). God would birth a new life, Christ’s life, in every believing sinner. This was simple and it needed no other explanation to make it work. All humans must be born again.

Yet, down through the ages of Christianity to the Christian world today, the simplicity of this gospel has been often overwhelmed by humans thinking their plan or doctrine is better than Paul’s message.

There are many things that have been and are being balanced by Christianity. I shall mention four of the most important.

THE FIRST IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE LAW AND GRACE. Balancing law and grace is like mixing two unrelated chemicals together, creating a poison. I have heard this balancing attempt explained this way: “We must have a balance between law and grace to constantly remind people of the laws of god, that when they are broken people can go to hell. On the other hand when grace is preached too many people use it as consent to their continual sinning.”

No. The Scriptures are clear that the law died at the cross (Galatians 3:13). The Scriptures also say that the only salvation there is comes by grace (Ephesians 2:8). All sinners are saved by grace and nothing else.

In the first half of my life, I lived the Christian life under both law and grace. I believed that the grace of God brought me to my faith and had the potential to get me to heaven and salvation. But that whenever I broke the law of God and sinned, I lost that grace and was headed for hell. I could, of course, regain that grace of God by confessing and repenting. Headed for heaven! No – now headed for hell! No – now headed for heaven again! No – now headed for hell again! What a way to live, never having any permanent stature with God.

When I discovered that Christ comes to live His life IN ME by a new birth, then I HAD a permanent stature with God and knew the only place I could be headed was heaven because my permanent union with Christ was taking me there.

If a believer does not love the Lord more than he loves the things of the world, then neither law nor grace will make any difference, and balancing the two together will make it worse. The truth of Christianity is that it is a love affair, not a law affair.

THE SECOND IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE THE OLD TESTAMENT COMMANDMENTS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT COMMANDMENTS. The commandments in the Old Testament were given to people who never had a spirit salvation given to them as we have by our new birth in Christ. Their entire program of salvation was soul salvation – a material salvation. When God deals with the soul of man, He waits for man to do something within himself to make it work. This is why there are so many commandments in the Old Testament. Salvation there is actually based on however man responds physically to what God says. In the New Testament, after the death of Christ on the cross, salvation was no longer based on commandments but on the finished work of Christ on the cross. Following this, God raised up the apostle Paul and gave him the final gospel of grace. And in this gospel of grace alone, there are plenty of commands, over 377 of them, but they are love commandments. This means there is no judgment attached to any of the love commands, like if you do not do this or that you will go to hell. Of course, this applies only to those who are born again. This means if you are saved by grace you are kept saved by grace. Never at any time does self-works enter into the believer’s salvation.

There are only two basic commandments for New Testament believers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

THE THIRD IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE TRUST AND WORKS. Hardly anyone who becomes a Christian fails to have this conflict. A new convert is presented with programs of works showing the things we should do to please God. Meeting the needs of the programs can become so burdensome to a believer, especially a new convert. Often they feel that they are a failure at being a Christian, or perhaps feel they are not really saved at all. It is at this point that works and trusting the Father to work out all things come in conflict. It is also at this point that it is put to bear on the worker that failing the program means failing God.

Where grace is the gospel, believers will always ask what they can do because they love God. In fact, you cannot stop them from working for their Lord, but it will never enter their minds that any work they do for the Lord will affect their salvation or their stand in Christ. Works and trust in the Lord never need to be balanced. Works flow out of a redeemed believer without any pressure.

THE FOURTH IS THE ATTEMPT TO BALANCE ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH. The simplicity of understanding the Scriptures is that at the cross Christ died for both Jew and Gentile and a new program was established which saved both the same way and no other plan from the Old Testament was involved, except historically (Colossians 2:13-15). This new life was in the Son, and no longer was there any need for the legalism, priesthood, ceremonies, observance of days or rituals that were a part of the soul salvation of Old Testament people.

So what did the Christian church do a short time after the apostolic era? They established an organized priesthood, ceremonies, observance of days and rituals! The New Testament Church is a new body of believers, and outer things – such as Israel’s practices for its soul salvation – are no longer necessary in grace. Grace provides a spirit salvation where none of these self-effort things make a difference in the life of the new born again believer (1 Corinthian 6:17). Israel never had a spirit salvation. In God’s ultimate plan, it was His intention that Christ be the life of humans.

Today, as in past ages, there are many believers who have never heard the final gospel of Paul who are attempting to return to some parts of Judaism in the hope of finding some refuge for their weary souls. Never before has grace become more powerful than it is today, but believers without a revelation of Christ living in them as their life – their only life – go back into the Old Testament hoping to find help for their troubled life. This is an attempt to balance, in their mind, Israel and the Church. Many still long for the pageantry, the candles and even the Old Testament priesthood. The sadness of this is that many of these dear Christians have Christ living in them as their spirit salvation, But go outside of Him to feed their soul feelings.

The Church is the Body of Christ and the believer is placed in Christ with Christ living in him the moment he is saved (1 Corinthians 12:13). Much of Christianity has never been drawn to the fullness of God’s plan – Christ in you, the key element of salvation. The priesthood and the pageantry offers something alluring and ego-satisfying, coupled in part with Christ as Savior, but never does it come right out and say, “We are not telling the whole truth.”

In it all, this business of attempting to balance things in Christianity and the Bible will fall flat. God has a perfect plan of creating true children by birthing Christ in them. Believers who know they are in Christ don’t need to balance anything. We need only to state the truth as Paul gives it in his epistles and everyone, both Jew and Gentile, will have the life God intended them to have – the life as a true child of God because Jesus Christ is living in them.

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Speed By Design

Can you picture driving down the Interstate at the top speed limit and looking out to see me running alongside your car as you travel between 65 and 70 miles per hour?

I am a cheetah, and I have actually been known to reach 71 miles per hour! Did my ancestors realize they needed such speed to catch their prey and adapt their bodies accordingly? Did they just happen to survive because “nature” made so many mistakes (mutations) in their favor? Or did an all-knowing God design them and me for survival?

Many scientists say that I am distinctly different from all other cats, both in my anatomy and my behavior. If the theories of evolution were true, shouldn’t I be pretty much like other cats?

Like most of the cat family, I am an excellent hunter. But unlike most of them, I usually hunt during the day, and am therefore equipped with excellent eyesight. Sometimes I perch on high places to sight the right type of animal, then spring onto my prey. But if I must chase, I usually do it at about half my maximum speed. Then when I’m within a few hundred yards of my prey, I make a lightning dash, swiping the hind legs from under my prey and pouncing on it.

My speed is what I survive on. At top running speed, I cover an amazing 23 feet per stride!

Ancient people captured cheetahs like me and used them to hunt wild game. An emperor in India was said to have kept 1000 cheetahs. How sad for our kind.

Some people say that cheetahs adapted themselves because of their need for survival. But what did my ancestors do before they had all the features needed for speed? Did only the speediest of my kind survive because they chanced to have all or most of the anatomy that made speed possible?

Compare a jet bomber and a railroad car. Isn’t someone planning that one can dart very fast and the other can carry heavy cargo? If you were hired to design a jet bomber, would you use the same materials you would use if building a railroad car? Isn’t intelligence needed to select the materials appropriate for each?

Just look at me! Look at all the highly designed features of me. I have:

A streamlined, greyhound-like body, with light-weight bones, small collar bones and vertical shoulder blades to facilitate speed (Were we able to select “light-weight” for our bones?)

A long heavy tail for balancing during high-speed leaping, also for quickly changing directions and breaking quickly from high speed (How did we keep from summersaulting forward when we tried to stop – before we had such a tail?)

A flexible backbone that stretches and contracts like a spring. As my spine bends upward, my hind legs actually reach ahead of my front legs. And as my spine snaps downward, my legs extend far out in front and in back of my body allowing me to spring an amazing 23 feet per stride! (Imagine a backbone that acts like a spring – without any designer!)

I have a small rounded head set on a long neck (Did my ancestors stretch their necks so often that their necks actually grew longer?)

My eyes have an elongated retinal fovea, giving me a sharp, wide-angle view of my surroundings. (Did we “see” the need for better range of vision and change the shape of our eyes to accommodate our need?)

I have dark tear marks beneath each eye like football players sometimes use for day games enhance my vision by minimizing the sun’s glare.

My Creator gave me extra long legs and complicated muscular systems that increase the rate and length of my stride and give me extra power for each spring. (Did we design our own muscle system? Did you humans – with far more brain power than I – design your own?)

And He designed oversized nostrils and lungs to provide quick air intake that I need for rapid acceleration; my teeth are small to accommodate the extra large nasal passages (Did an exhausted cheetah say, “I really need more air more quickly. I’ll increase the size of my nostrils and grow bigger lungs – and I can get along with smaller teeth”?)

I have oversized liver, heart, and adrenals to facilitate a rapid physical response (Did we decide on the size of our organs?!)

Did you notice my special paw pads and non-retractable claws to increase traction? Even the pads of my toes are specialized. Very hard and sharply pointed forward, they act as cleats when I break from a fast run or make a sharp turn. (You can put cleats on your shoes, but how did the cheetah figure out how to grow special paw and toe pads to serve our needs?)

As a result of these features, I have the ability to accelerate very quickly. From a standing start, it is said that I can reach a speed of 60 miles per hour more quickly than many racing cars!

I depend on my speed to kill my prey. And I often lose my prey to hungry lions and hyenas, because after I make a sprint and kill my prey, I need half an hour to catch my breath before I can eat. So once I have my prey at hand I devour it as soon as I can. I even know where to start to get maximum benefit fast – I consume the hind quarters of my prey first, because these have the largest concentration of protein – how did I find that out? A GOOD DESIGNER!

I would say that I am another of God Almighty’s awesome designs! And I love it!

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Thoughts On Jehovah's Witnesses

A friend recently said, “I am confused as to why people don't believe that Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christian. I was told that it was because members of the Watchtower organization don't believe in the Trinity, nor do they celebrate Christ's birth. I personally have a problem with people "deciding" who is Christian and who is not.”

I understand my friend’s problem and concern. There are those who take it upon themselves to determine what God alone can and does - playing God is a game that some do play. There are those who seem to use their Christianity - or their assumed Christianity - as a club to demean others and exalt themselves. Such self-exaltation and pomposity is alien to the humble, servant-based life of Jesus that lives within those who accept Him. Some thoughts about the question:

1) Simply because someone announces that they attend a certain church or group does not mean, de facto, that the individual agrees with all of the tenets of that group, denomination or movement. So we cannot arbitrarily and summarily judge someone solely by the affiliation(s) they have. Some Republicans agree with President George Bush on most issues - some do not. Most Democrats do not agree with President Bush on most issues, though some do, on some issues.

2) However, there are objective criteria one can use when determining if a person is a Christian - or a Democrat or a Republican - or whether their citizenship is Canadian or German, etc. When it comes to Christianity, there are over 1,900 years of core beliefs and practices that have identified those in the body of Christ. At the same time, over those same 1,900 years there have been non-essential, peripheral practices and traditions that Christians have disagreed about - and still do. Non-essential issues that the Bible does not clearly insist on do not identify Christians as Christians - but essential, core beliefs do.

Core beliefs that Christians have always affirmed include the nature of God - that God, according to the Bible, is one God who exists eternally and separately as Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Trinity is a word that Christians use to describe the formulation of biblical beliefs about God's nature). The nature of God is a critically important - perhaps the most important - belief that Christians have - in fact the nature of god(s) is usually seen as the most critical of any religion.

Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, is monotheistic (belief in one God) - while other religions are polytheistic (belief in multiple gods). Christianity of course has a Judeo-Christian foundation - and builds on its belief of the one God of Judaism (as per the Old Testament of the Bible) and accepts Jesus as the divine Son of God, and the Holy Spirit as divine as well (these beliefs as per the New Testament of the Bible).

From the first few centuries of Christianity there were those who opposed God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One of the groups was known as Arians - after Arius, their leader. The Jehovah's Witnesses are modern-day Arians - believing that Jesus is created, that He was once an angel - denying therefore the power of His cross and resurrection, and the fact that He is alive today as our Lord and Savior.

Other core beliefs, in addition to the nature of God, include the divinity of Jesus Christ (a part of the Trinity in one sense) - but a separate teaching in terms of His incarnation, birth, life, death and resurrection. As stated above, the Watchtower Society and Jehovah's Witnesses do not agree that Jesus is God. In addition, they do not agree with the core belief of salvation by grace through faith - that we are saved by Jesus and Jesus alone. JWs believe in works theology - that we gain/earn a future after life on the basis of our performance.

Neither do the JWs agree with another historic core teaching of Christianity - that the body of Christ is universal, existing inside of and outside of many organized churches. That is, the Christian belief is that Christianity exists wherever God wants it to, and that no one group has the right to say that it alone is correct and "true" and that all others are false. JWs claim exactly this -- that they are the only true church.

So, in brief, the official teachings of the JWs are not Christian. Whether an individual member of the JWs is Christian or not is another issue - and one should be careful about "branding" individuals as non-Christians, but we as Christians are within biblical boundaries in identifying what is Christian and what is not. We could go so far to say that if an individual member of the JWs has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, chances are they will not remain within the JW organization for long - for they will encounter teaching and practice that wars against their authentic Christianity.

An individual JW may be a wonderful person - but the Bible does not teach that Christianity is produced by good morals - there are many people who are "good" people, who are upstanding citizens, who are not Christians (many atheists and agnostics are ethical people). Christians are identified by those who identify themselves with the Jesus Christ of the gospel, who accept Him and Him alone as being sufficient and capable to forgiven their sins and thus, by God's grace, be given eternal life on the basis of the cross of Christ - not on the basis of human deeds and performance.

Having said all of this, one more disclaimer. It is possible for a person to attend a church that accepts all the essential, core beliefs of historic Christianity, and still not be a Christian. While we can expect to find more Christians gathered together around groups, churches and ministries that proclaim core Christian beliefs, it is possible to attend a church that formally accepts Christian doctrine, and still not be a Christian. Simply attending a church does not make us a Christian either. Christianity is all about an individual relationship with God, it is Christ-centered and it is based on God's amazing grace.

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Pray Without Ceasing ???

The apostle Paul admonishes us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “Pray without ceasing!” How in the world do we do this? I don’t believe that he meant to constantly mumble prayers every second or even to think prayers about what we want in every circumstance.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Lots of people pray for me; and I have never been any worse for it. The only valid argument against the practice is that God knows his own business without any prompting.”

Why do some view prayer as a futile thing? They grant God (if they recognize Him at all) the intelligence to run His universe without any prompting, and also believe it reasonable that no amount of begging or beseeching is going to make Him alter His plans.

Prayer must be something deeper and finer than telling God what He can do and what He should do. I have come to see prayer as ACKNOWLEDGMENT – a recognition of the eternity of the goodness of God, here and now.

Whenever I see or hear the verb “pray” I substitute in its place “acknowledge”; and for the noun “prayer” I substitute “acknowledgment”.

I change Paul’s “Pray without ceasing” to “Acknowledge without ceasing.”

Jesus prayed the unceasing acknowledgment of the reality of God’s good nature when He said, “It is done,” before the senses could see that any change had taken place. Again He often said, “Thank you, Father,” knowing that the finished works already existed although unseen.

“Whatever things you desire when you pray, believe (acknowledge) that you receive [present tense] them and you shall have them” Again we see the acknowledgment of the finished thing which is given to us before we ask, and while we are yet speaking. This would all be impossible if the thing or desire didn’t already exist in the Father’s reality.

Praying without ceasing IS a present possibility IF it is a constant open acknowledgment that “all is well” because God can and does run His universe without help or even suggestion. The great use and truly ONLY functional use of prayer is that it brings us into line with the FACTS of God’s eternal goodness. We get into and stay into the universal rhythm of it and are carried on into our expression of peace and joy.

When a person comes to recognize and acknowledge in prayer an opportunity of allying himself with God, he understands how “all things are possible with God,” and if possible with God, possible also to those of us in a living union with Christ (even though we don’t always see how or understand it).

Jesus said He came “that your joy might be full.” And He said to pray. This seems to indicate that prayer should be a joyful acknowledgment of good and not a mournful beseeching and begging. All the effort to make God see how needy your case is will not alter the fact that you have Jesus’ lesson to learn from the lilies and the ravens who “let” things come into expression and don’t constantly worry and complain about the lack of them.

When you stop to think about it, any prayer that beseeches and begs God to do a thing is the wrong kind of acknowledgment. It says in a way that the Creator has forgotten or overlooked something needful of accomplishment. The more we beg God to be good to us, the more we show forth our lack of true understanding of His eternal nature of Fatherly care and goodness.

God has a GOOD plan for your life. If you must, make any mention of specific need in your prayer very passing and momentary. Play it down to a minimum. THEN accentuate the prayer of acknowledgment – PRAISE AND THANKFULNESS FOR THE ETERNAL, HERE AND NOW, GOODNESS OF GOD.

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